a/n a lil fic for riza-hawkqyeen and the prompt 20: "you need to wake up because i can't do this without you." / this was supposed to be a drabble but i love it kinda? does it make sense or fit either at all? hah probs not. its 3 am. if you like it, review, follow, talk to me, i crave attention.
It wasn't her fault he had too many rooms for a one single man's apartment.
It wasn't her fault she really didn't stay overnight anywhere
at any point in history.
she was always in her flat,
always in her bed.
The kitchen was out her bedroom door and to the left.
The sitting room to its right. You didn't even walk five feet
to get to the restroom.
That was it.
There wasn't a guest bedroom. Or a spare guest bedroom,
or a never-ending hallway connecting the two.
Her kitchen had an oven, a hot plate for a kettle,
a little fridge, a couple cabinets.
The Flame Alchemist had a stovetop
that lit the fire on its own.
How ironic, she huffed.
There was a tall, long pantry and plenty of space to pace while you cooked.
The sitting room could fit two couches, a radiator, a coffee table,
and a whole wall of priceless, collectible, expansively boring books
on the theory of alchemy in all different forms.
It wasn't that his home was unusually large,
just way bigger than hers.
He did have a Colonel's salary for awhile
on top of his State Alchemist funds.
He might have let his wallet loose just a little
so he could be comfortable and have pleasant things to look at,
instead of living in a space the size of a shoebox
and only having to trip over the frayed, misshapen rug at the door
to fall and break something in all three different rooms
all at one time.
Maybe even the bathroom if you tried hard enough.
She managed to do that once.
His apartment was reasonable, she thought,
It did make sense.
But, what was so nice about her tiny apartment:
it was a small enough space to keep track
of all doors, windows, locks, keys,
all while sleeping and dreaming.
She knew where everything was.
She knew how everything was supposed to be.
Plus, she had Hayate.
She knew that she could hit nearly any breaking and entering target
at any major entrance and exit with the pistol under her pillow,
without getting up, as long as her bedroom door was open.
His door was closed.
Hayate was at home.
Her extra pistol was in her bag across the room,
which was just far bigger than necessary.
The floor was beautiful and hardwood,
but it seemed to stretch for miles,
and hardwood wasn't meant for stealth.
Her feet would stick,
the wood would creak.
Plus, she imagined, even if she tried to make the cross,
she'd slip on one of the many pieces of their uniforms,
thrown off earlier in a hurry, and consequentially break her neck.
She couldn't shoot a pistol with a broken neck.
She supposed she could survive one night, or one more night.
There were two of them. They could take down an intruder with brute really wouldn't have been an issue if she was dealing with a physical foe.
It started with the chimes.
She knew they were chimes.
She listened to them, studied their sound.
She didn't breath and she listened
and for a good while too
before Roy shifted just a smidge,
adjusted his arm laid across her torso,
and happened to open his eyes for just a moment.
In that moment, she glanced at him,
and finally let her breath go.
In that moment, he read her cover to cover.
He inched closer to her and said in a soft voice,
"Wind chimes," he practically fell asleep
while he followed, "On the balcony."
He was surely asleep when she said,
"There's no wind."
She was a sniper.
She knew wind.
There wasn't a storm coming in,
much less a predicted pressure change.
There wasn't wind.
But, there were chimes.
And, she didn't want to admit it,
but she was spooked.
So, Riza braved the cold, she slipped from underneath Roy's arm,
from underneath the piles of blankets, and scurried across the floor on the balls of her feet, dodging the shadows, knowing they were clothes.
She almost slipped once.
She snatched the offending piece up as revenge,
a shirt. She put it on. It smelled like Roy.
Roy's shirt.
How fitting.
dink
The sound put Riza into motion. She plunged her hand
into her bag, swiftly pulled the gun from its holster,
cocked it, circled, and aimed toward the dresser
on the other side of the room.
A car drove by, sweeping headlights illuminated the floor.
Riza's eyes just happened to see the cufflink settle at the leg of the drawers.
The silver sparkled in the fleeting light. A cufflink.
She was locked and loaded,
aimed and ready to fire
on a cufflink.
Roy turned over on his side,
taking nearly all the covers with him.
He hadn't even flinched.
Riza breathed in. Riza breathed out, skipped back over the hardwood,
tucked the pistol under the pillow and was ready to yank her share
of the sheets back from Roy until she heard
chimes.
Riza hadn't even noticed they had stopped.
Had they stopped? Yes, the stopped.
But, then the cufflink.
She was losing it.
But, she knew there was no wind.
She slowly took her pistol, released the covers,
and stepped to open the door.
The hall was impossibly dark.
And, the chimes still impossibly chimed,
lightly though, just a tinkling.
The sound seemed harmless,
sweet, friendly even.
The sound shouldn't have seemed like anything at all.
The sound shouldn't have existed. Period.
She moved quickly across the hallway and into the open sitting room.
Moonlight shone through the wide windows and lit the sofas and table and
many many books with a soft, sweet, blue light.
The chiming stopped.
Hawkeye cocked her gun.
Her breathing silenced.
She scanned the room.
The windows
the fireplace,
a mantle,
two picture frames,
the wall of books,
a little ladder to reach them,
a coat rack,
a key hook,
the front door
ting-a-ling
The keys moved.
The
keys
moved.
Hawkeye aimed.
She was across the room.
She wasn't anywhere near the keys.
There wasn't anyone near to move the keys.
The windows weren't open, the door was shut,
she wasn't even breathing. And still
the
keys
moved.
Riza ran.
She bolted.
She sprinted,
She whipped Roy's bedroom door closed behind her.
She braced the wood with her back and held her pistol as tight as she could.
She listened.
Nothing.
Roy shifted only a little and gave a sleepy sigh.
He hadn't woken up. He didn't find this odd.
The chimes without wind.
The keys without
ting-a-ling
Oh god, the keys.
Riza was at Roy's side in a hot second,
crouched beside his nightstand.
She yanked the drawer open
and rummaged through its contents with one hand,
aiming the other, her gun, at the door.
She pulled out everything in a frenzy.
He had to be keeping a pair in here.
A handful of push pins,
a metal tin, a couple rubber bands,
crumpled and torn memos, letters, most likely important things
all from the desks of the higher ups, tossed into this depthless limbo,
one third garbage,
one third too important to officially be garbage,
one third precious keepsakes.
Such as the pictures at the bottom, piles and pile of pictures,
some of the team, but most of Hughes, his wife, his daughter,
the kind the late Brigadier General would carry around in his wallet
and shove in their faces.
Piles and piles of them, given to Roy as a gift
from Gracia Hughes only a year ago.
Riza placed those delicately aside
and finally found what she was looking for.
His gloves.
She kept her gun aimed at the door,
then reached to nudge him awake.
"Sir." she whispered, sounding quite more flustered
than she usually thought acceptable.
"General."
Roy heard her voice and naturally smiled,
responding with a sleepy, dreamy, "Captain."
"Wake up," she snapped.
"You can't order me around," he said in a yawn, "I'm you superior ofi…c..-"
Riza huffed, nudging him again, harder this time,
a push to each syllable."Wake. Up."
He was pretty much already asleep.
He turned on his side and settled back into his pillow.
She moved to turn him back -
ting-a-ling
"Roy." She whispered desperately,
catching her voice before it whimpered.
ting-a-ling
She snatched the pillow from under his head,
flipped it up and slammed it down on his face.
"ow," came out from the fluff."
"You need to wake up," she demanded,
"Because I can't do this without you."
"Can't do what?" he turned quickly,
finally hearing the panic in her voice,
the struggle to stay steady.
The concern was short lived.
"Wait. Why aren't you in bed?"
She grabbed his gloves off the nightstand
and tossed them to him.
She didn't have time for him to play catch up.
He sat up. She waved her gun.
"I can't shoot a ghost, Sir."
She wasn't happy with the way he started snickering, practically giggling really.
He had a hard time staying still long enough to peel his gloves off his hands,
ones he had secured in one pull after finally registering
the pure fear in her voice.
She could deadpan through nearly anything.
Apparently not this.
Riza Hawkeye.
Scared of ghosts.
It was cute. Adorable, actually.
That's what he was thinking.
But, Riza wasn't happy with that.
Riza wasn't cute. Riza was practical,
and reasonable, and strategic, and intelligent.
And, she saw those keys move.
She wasn't scared.
How dare he think -
Ugh.
She.
Wasn't.
Scared.
"I'm serious," she bit.
Roy threw the gloves back in his drawer,
whipped around and turned on his lamp.
Still.
Giggling.
"Stop it." Riza snapped.
He didn't.
"First the chimes without the wind. Then.
Your keys moved. I saw them move."
He grabbed her gun, flipped on the safety,
stuffed it in the drawer, turned off the light
and grabbed her off the floor.
"Back to bed." He said resolutely, effectively pulling the Riza Hawkeye
up and over and onto the other side of the bed like a rag doll.
"Roy Mustang, I swe- " she bit through her teeth.
But, he had already flung the covers over their heads,
crushed her up against his chest, and wrapped her up in his arms.
"Roy," she muffled, her face squished.
"I'll protect you, Riza," he snickered.
"Le- m-go"
"So you can do what? You said yourself, you can't shoot the ghosts."
"No," she pushed away enough to look him dead in the eye,
"But, I can shoot you."
His mouth melted into a grin that made her cheeks burn.
She wasn't scared. She wasn't embarrassed.
She knew what she saw. She was -
"Go to sleep," he said, pushing her back into his chest.
Riza huffed angrily, unsettled and restless.
But, soon enough, the warmth of the fortress of blankets
swallowed her whole.
She did listen vigilantly at first,
but only until Roy's soft heartbeat did her in.
There were no chimes.
No jingling.
Not that she could hear.
Eventually, her arms were around him again.
Eventually, her eyes fluttered closed.
Roy was still awake, nose buried in her hair.
Before she drifted away, she heard him say,
"It's probably just Hughes."
"Hm?" she hummed, curling her toes,
letting him know he still owed her an answer.
whether she was luxuriously warm and calm
and cozy and nearly unconscious or not.
Whether he won or not,
he still owed her an answer.
"Well, you tell me." Roy closed his eyes and held her tighter,
"If Maes Hughes were to haunt anyone for any reason,"
Roy sort of smiled.
"Don't you think it'd be to rub in the fact
that you're in my bed?"
The next morning Riza had fumbled around Roy's kitchen successfully enough to make tea. A select few of many plates clattered when she tried to reach the teacups.
She didn't have to yank open his drawers like she did hers, but she did anyway, accidentally. The silverware clattered, the clinking echoing through the kitchen,
into the sitting room and down the hall.
Roy still snored.
Riza stood on end.
That sound.
She remembered the keys,
and before she could breathe,
she snatched them from the hook by the door,
and slammed them down on the kitchen counter.
And, breathe out.
Riza picked up her teacup, brought it to nose,
felt the steam on her skin.
She heard the chimes.
Riza snapped to the windows, bright sunshine bathed the sitting room.
Cars drove by on the streets below, and a breeze blew summer blossoms
past the balcony. Wind.
And, breathe out.
Satisfied, Riza grabbed her cup,
and stepped to Roy's room -
crunch
right on to some sort of something,
a piece of paper it felt like.
Riza swept in up,
turned it over.
A picture.
Maes Hughes and Gracia Hughes on their wedding day.
That's strange, she thought.
Maybe one from the stacks in the drawer.
Surely she put all of those away.
She flipped it.
On the back, written:
Roy,
It's your turn now, pal.
Don't keep her waiting too long.
Riza hummed at the words.
Seriously, I have money on you two.
Hurry up.
She glanced up at the keys on the kitchen counter,
looked out toward the chimes on the balcony.
"It's probably just Hughes" Roy had said.
Maybe so.
Riza put the photo aside,
placed the cup on her nightstand,
and buried herself back under the covers.
ting-a-ling
Riza flinched for only a moment,
then quickly melted, smiling into her pillow.
"It's probably just Hughes" he had said.
Certainly so.
review, follow, the works. :3