He shows up at her door spectacularly drunk.
She knows it's him - Hayate only scratches as high up on the wood as he can reach whenever Roy is on the other side, and when Riza peers through the peephole Mustang's forearm is braced aganst the door, his forehead resting on the sleeve of his coat.
"Dammit, Elizabeth. I know you're home."
He would call her by that name.
She takes a deep breath, though whether it's laced with sarcasm or self-preservation she isn't really sure; it's become hard to separate the two as of late-and wrenches the door open. He stumbles in none too gracefully, shrugging off his coat, his dress blues creasing in all new places when he pulls them off and balls them up and throws them on the floor. Hayate barks once, his guard dog duty fulfilled for the night, and prances out of the way, bounding on little white paws into the kitchen.
He looks like hell. Like his knees'll give out any second, and he reeks like a distillery. She sighs and starts off towards the closet like she's done a hundred times before, listing in her head the things she'll need to get him for the shower. Business as usual. So when he grabs her elbow and yanks her closer and feels far too steady in her arms to be drunk she can't keep her eyes from falling open, and Riza hopes to high heaven that he's too inebriated to notice all the things swirling behind them.
There is scotch and desperation on his tongue and it makes her want to retch, but a kiss is a kiss and though she won't admit it she's hopelessly afraid this one may be her last. The fear settles behind her ribcage like cold air seeping through her lungs into the soft tissues around them, and so when he works her lips apart she lets him taste her all he likes and warm her with his tongue. Stiff, fumbling hands struggle with the buttons on her shirt and in her gently stern way she pushes him back long enough to undo them all herself. Callused hands find her breasts, caress her through black lace. She turns her face into his shoulder and he traces her throat with the tip of his nose, and the barest touch speaks of something throbbing inside him deep beneath the skin.
He's softer with her than usual. Maybe it's the alcohol, maybe something else, but the fierceness and fire she's used to blend with a warmth that feels eerily calm, and it catches her far off her guard. There is reverence in his touch where she'd expected the passionate impatience he'd always met her with, and it thrills her and scares her that he's never touched her quite like this before.
He's careful as he strokes her face, her shoulders, her hair, each deliberate brush of skin on skin strange through the haze of scotch he's left in her mouth. She's expected a mess, and instead she's been given adoration and the kind of heat that seeps in through the skin and settles there, warm and pulsing, until long after he'll leave her alone in the morning. She feels guilty for taking pleasure from his obvious distress, but his hands slide over her back and the muscles in his arms are strong as cords holding her to him as though the second he loosens his grip he'll never be able to pull her so close ever again.
She knows it will only make it harder to wrench herself away. She knows that mercy will turn to cruelty come sunrises and goodbyes if she lets herself give him what he's asking for. She knows better than anything else left in this world. But knowing is nothing when set against the ache of his body pressed to hers.
It's odd how her heartbeat hammers in her temples, strong and alive when she'd rather die than leave him to fight his wars alone, and something breaks within her that her hands cupping his face are less for comfort and more to stoke the desire smouldering dully in his eyes. His cheeks are flushed and his mouth feverish, pressing hotly to her thumb as she strokes it across his lips. He kisses the pads of her fingers, ghosts his tongue over them, and then his arms tighten around her waist and his lips are on her face and he tastes less like scotch but feels like he's poured it straight into her veins. Her tongue burns. Her sides burn where his palms lie. He kisses the hinge of her jaw all the way down the curve of her shoulder, turns her around with sure, sober hands at her waist, and his lips press warm roses over the back of her neck and shoulders. His hands slide down her body and tug at the bow cinching her pajamas to her hips. She reciprocates by fumbling with his belt, and isn't sure whether to be thankful or embarrassed when he relieves her suddenly shaking hands of that duty and steps out of the last of his dress blues. He slides one hand down to her thigh and presses her back against him, strokes the flat plane of her stomach and makes her muscles clench and tense under his touch.
Riza almost wants to dislodge him when his attentions spread over her scars, but the ugly ripples in her flesh are old and shared and fading. Healing born of disfigurement, for both of them. He laves his tongue over her blemishes and she burns in a way that shouldn't feel so satisfying in places that have only brought them pain. But it feels far too good and her heart beats too fast for the way it aches like it's been clawed right out of her chest.
He's been oddly silent this whole time. She hears just the rush of her heartbeat pounding hard and fast where his skin meets her shoulder blades, the heavy sigh of breath in her ears-far from the guttural passion she knows. She has no words of her own to fill the spreading, sticky silence-and it unnerves her more than all the rest combined.
She reaches back and holds his face to press his cheek to hers, fingertips stroking his nape. He shivers where her nails rake through his hair. "Roy, what-" her breath catches with the kiss against her pulse. "Say something."
But he can't or he won't and instead he just looks at her through dark-rimmed eyes that could have burned the world and kisses her, takes her bottom lip gently between his teeth, kisses her again with desperate fervor. She murmurs her request against his mouth-her face as far away as his hand against her throat would allow.
"Please."
He presses his forehead to her shoulder, their breath coming quick and labored through the pulse hammering in her temples. She can't see his face.
"If you meant less to me," his voice is hot and velvet and in another moment she would have cut him off before he could take this any farther. But tonight she can't muster enough resolve quite in time. "Maybe I'd have words for it."
She knows what's coming and it isn't something she can bear to hear, and in that second his gentleness ignites her fight-or-flight and fear rises along with a frenzied need for self-preservation. "No, Roy-" Her body jerks forward - stall him, stop him - and his arms pull her close to still her, as if it could meld her into him completely. His uncommonly steady presence at her back does little to quell the bursts of anxiety that swell and break through her limbs and raise gooseflesh on her arms. "It's not - please don't-"
"Goddammit, Riza." He rasps her jagged name as if it's torn his throat all red and raw and all of a sudden she can't swallow the sand that seems to coat her tongue. "If I'm not in love with you, what the hell else is there to call it?"
No.
No.
Strange how a single word can make her feel so fragile. Every agonizing pulse of her heart is brittle and laid bare beneath his hands. They are not meant for this.
"There is nothing to call it, Roy."
She spoke too sharply, too quickly. Too telling. His hand falls away from her throat-he'd felt her neck tighten up under his palm-but settles it elsewhere, holding her just beneath her ribcage. He doesn't let on if she's hurt him like she fears, just holds her for long moments, breathes in the scent of her hair tucked behind one ear, seemingly content just to feel her warm and solid and so very present in his embrace. It's almost more than she can process all at once. Too many senses, too many dying words she's held for so many years hanging heavy in her head.
"Don't do this to me," she begs. It's better that he cannot see her face, nor she see his. All the scotch in the world wouldn't be enough to forget.
She wants to run. She wants to backhand him across the face. Mostly she wants to turn in his arms and collapse against his chest and let him hold her until the shaking stops. And yet all she can do is force her hands steady.
"Roy."
He breathes deep. She swallows though her heart's lodged itself in her windpipe.
"Don't make this out to be something it isn't."
He's extremely still behind her back. She barely feels the whisper of his breath through her hair.
He rests his lips against her temple and she could swear he's closed his eyes. Her skin prickles under the weight of his thoughts settling like humidity in the air. It's suddenly much, much harder to breathe.
"You'll regret this." The silence that had been so warm and welcome under his hands seemed to solidify with her breath. "I will not be the reason Bradley hunts you."
Slowly, he releases her, and the entire world slows and grinds to rest in an unbearable stillness that two minutes ago Riza would have given anything for. She will not look at him. Her eyes are shut and her jaw is set against whatever pain has yet to surface, and it kills her when he curls his fingers beneath her chin to guide her back to his face.
He is unbearably gentle. Chaste lips press a dry kiss to her mouth.
"Never you," he murmurs.
A/N: So...here's my first revisitation of Fullmetal Alchemist characters in...a long time. Let me know how it sounds?
I'll leave you all to decide if the point where I've left them is "the end."