Now these were feelings that Riza hadn't felt in a while. The softness of the mattress beneath her, the feel of someone else's skin against her's—this was the last way she had expected her day to end.
Jean stopped, his hand still holding her face. His eyebrows raised in a question and the word "Yes" had almost escaped her lips before he opened his.
Or it would have.
If there wasn't something he needed to know.
She sat up. He looked hurt for a moment, but quickly masked it with one of his easy smiles.
"Guess I was being a little too fast, Lieute-"and he stopped when she took her shirt off.
This was never how she had expected this conversation to go. It was supposed to be a practical and well thought out decision: who to tell, when to tell them. It was supposed to be with someone who she was certain wouldn't leave. It was supposed to be with someone who she wouldn't care if they did. She hadn't expected to fall for Jean so fast and she certainly hadn't expected that a few drinks would give her the courage she needed to go home with him.
"There's something you need to know," she began.
"Is it your bra size? Because I have to say, I'm impressed," he said with an appreciative look at her chest before a pillow came hurtling into the side of his face.
"Be serious for once," she said, although her lips were tugging into a smile that quickly faded, and with great reluctance, she turned around.
She could only imagine his face. Confusion at first she was sure, and then disgust at the horrific scarring that had torn its way down her back.
"Is that… a transmutation circle?"
She couldn't turn around, "Does it look familiar?"
She could feel him place a finger against the center of it. The touch of his flesh against the damaged skin was almost soothing.
"That's Mustang's. That's on his gloves."
It wasn't a question, but she nodded anyway.
"I don't understand."
She sighed and suddenly her nakedness made her nervous. She pulled her shirt back over her head and the concern in his eyes brought her own to the floor. He had just seen the source of her and Roy's sins and the last thing she wanted was pity.
"My father was an alchemist," she began, "and like they say, alchemists crave knowledge above all else."
He had always been intrigued by fire, she remembered, even before he began his quest to create it from thin air. She had been young, but she could remember the way he had broken after her mother had died. All the softness had gone from his eyes as if it was stolen by the flames he watched so intently.
"That should have been my first clue," she said, "to stay away from fire. I had already seen how it could destroy what was left of people's souls."
It had taken years before he was even close to a sound theory and the more his obsession grew, the more money slowly dwindled away as Riza struggled to keep things running in the big ramshackle house.
"That's where Mustang comes in," she said.
He looked surprised, "Here?"
She nodded, "My father needed some way to make money and teaching and alchemy were the two things he knew how to do. Mustang was 16."
And he had had all of the youthful optimism that came with it. Yet another thing that had been destroyed by fire.
She tried to explain the best she could: her father's obsession, the late nights he spent in his room, huddled over textbooks and crumpled papers. She didn't tell him about his anger at being interrupted, or that some days she was afraid that when she opened the door she'd find his corpse hunched over his desk, in death just as he had been in life, surrounded by filth and with a pen firmly in hand.
She tried to explain the tattoo.
"He… he needed a place to keep his research safe," she said, furious with herself for allowing her voice to shake, "He was finished and he didn't want anyone he didn't trust to see it."
There was a long silence as Riza's vision began to blur with treacherous tears. She hadn't cried like this since it had happened, when all she could feel was pain and the deepest sense of betrayal that her father would do this to her.
"Riza…" she didn't meet his eyes but she allowed him to pull her against his warm chest, "Did it hurt?" he said quietly.
She nodded almost imperceptibly and he pulled her in tighter. His fingers grazed the burnt skin right under her shirt's collar, "And the scars?" he asked.
She didn't want to answer; she could have stayed in his arms like that forever, but eventually she pulled away from him and tried to collect herself the best she could.
"My father died soon after that," she said slowly, "and I needed to find someone I could trust with Flame Alchemy. Roy had just come back from the Academy—"
"Roy?" Jean raised an eyebrow.
"Oh come off it; it's not like I was going to be calling him Colonel Mustang when we were teenagers," his eyebrow settled back down but he continued to smirk in a way that drove her crazy.
"Anyway, he was the logical choice. He had studied with my father for years and had an idealism, a need to protect people that seemed so noble. I was certain that his hands were ones I could trust to use my secrets to help people, not hurt them," she looked around, almost in helplessness, "I was wrong. We were both so very wrong."
"Is that where you got them, the war?" Jean said quietly.
Her laugh was almost bitter, "In a manner. You… you weren't there, Jean. In Ishval."
"I heard about it," he said, "that's why I decided to enlist; I wanted to help."
She shook her head, "We weren't helping. Those were innocent people and we destroyed everything in a storm of flame and ash. Because of me."
He opened his mouth but she quickly cut him off, "I don't need your pity Jean and I don't deserve it either. I… I'm just trying to get you to understand why I did what I did next. No man should have the ability to conjure fire. It's too powerful, too terrible. And there was nothing like watching Roy Mustang in action to make me realize that. Between him and myself, those secrets had to die."
She watched as horrible realization dawned on his face.
"He didn't—"
"Jean—"
"Those are burn—"
"I know—"
He was climbing out of bed, "He hurt you. I swear to God, when I get my hands on him, Flame Alchemy or no—"
"Jean."
He stood still for a moment, as did time, and all the things she had just told him seemed to pass between their eyes.
"It was my decision. He would never have laid a hand on me if I hadn't asked him to, begged him to even," he sat back down, slowly, onto the bed.
"I had no idea…"
"Good," she said firmly, "I've tried my best to keep it that way. Until today, this secret has been kept between the Colonel and myself," she laughed despite herself, "Look at me. Do you think anyone's ever killed the mood as effectively as this?" But he knew the truth now and surely he understood why an explanation was necessary before he saw that thing that resided on her backside.
She slid out of bed, "I'll see myself out. I'm sorry to intrude on your hospitality when so little came of it. But," she smiled at him, "I really did have a good time, Jean. It was a very nice date."
She couldn't be so naive as to hope for another one. He had seen everything, all the darkness she kept inside, and she couldn't expect him to want that. That was the last thing he had bargained for.
"You can stay," he said and she turned around incredulously, "We don't have to sleep together or anything; you're right, you did kind of kill the mood. But if it was me… if I had just laid all of that out in front of someone… I don't think I'd want to spend the night alone," And he smiled, a little sadly, but it was still real, "Anyways, I like you, Riza. I like just being with you, even with your sexy tattoo."
She could have kissed him right then, so she did, even if it was just for a moment.