a/n Hey there, I'm back. You all have gotten so tall. I'm so proud.
Here's this. I'll be posting this fic over the next two weeks.
It wasn't going to be an issue
managing the aftermath.
Or.
It wasn't going to be that grave of an issue.
Or.
It wasn't going to be that grave of an issue theoretically.
But, General Mustang and his Captain had always been in a bit of denial.
A brief recap of sorts for convenience:
Shortly after being forced to share a room with her superior due to a supposed clerical error,
Riza Hawkeye exhibited to her roommate a most enticing weakness via a most
unfortunately timed dream of less than pure nature.
This weakness: Roy Mustang himself.
It was simply just her luck, but not solely her fault to be fair. Brigadier General Roy Mustang simply
did not have the body one would expect of a typical pencil pusher. He went shirtless that night as she,
her suitcase of course pajamaless by the very cruelty of the universe, resorted to wearing
the General's shirt once so generously offered.
Needless to say, there was a critical lack of clothing.
They had set themselves up for failure.
It was pathetic. It was unfair.
It was the Wedding.
Edward Elric was to marry Winry Rockbell the following afternoon and, as is custom,
threw one of those silly little shindings that seemed to universally drive its attendees up the wall,
in one way or another, instilling childish fantasies often with a heavy helping of doubt.
So, given,
their defenses had been wearing thin all week, via the stag parties and wedding planning,
and the fact that prying into another's very privatelove life was practically a past time at these things,
whether determinedly nonexistent or otherwise.
But, Roy Mustang would say that he, personally, officially sort of lost it once she started dreaming that wicked dream,
curling her toes and making those sounds. The two, understandably, struggled with the management of their proximity
for the rest of the evening, reluctantly attempting to balance between the preferred, the appropriate and the space required
to avoid becoming tangled together in the sheets of one of two beds available to them.
Oh, but they were so good at denial, and so, evidently, bad
at such romantic circumstances, So, they stuck with that mantra.
It isn't going to be an issue.
And, of course, they would have been correct.
They would have been correct if it was simply the lust that reared its ugly head in the little Owl Inn that night.
They would have been correct if Amestris' finest pair of officers had approached the next day, the aftermath,
with a cohesive plan of attack rather than two diametrically opposed coping mechanisms.
It wouldn't have been an issue
if they didn't have a wedding to go to.
Yet, all of the above was true.
Therefore, the day following,
Riza would choose to fight the inevitable.
Roy would choose to flee the reality.
Neither would choose to fail but, by end of the night,
would certainly end up back in Room Four
together.
Now, into the thick of it.
Captain Hawkeye left Room Three the morning after as quickly as she could, leaving as Captain Hawkeye and only as Captain Hawkeye.
Such was her strategy; she would fight for the grace of forgetting the way her superior had looked at her the night before,
the way he studied the feel of her skin and kissed her like all they had was time.
Riza shut down the foolish heart that fluttered, gathered her hair and dashed out the door.
She would forget that all of this had even come to pass. She would fight to keep fighting for tomorrow,
for Amestris, for the General.
So, six o'clock struck and she was out of there.
Roy would want to talk.
She just knew he would want to reason and adapt and remember and, of course, she was right on the money.
Roy hid under the covers, listening to her pace, listening to her collect the courage to waltz down to the
innkeeper's room in only Roy's nightshirt and retrieve a new key to Room Four.
For, of course, last night the universe had decided to not only curse them with the release of ten years worth
of sexual tension to no actual satisfying end, but also lock them out of the room they were supposed to share.
The room that at least had two separate twin beds.
So they shared this room, Room Three, Ling and Lan Fan's cargo room. They slept on far separate sides
of the queen sized matress, with an appropriate pillow barrier, surrounded by the poster image for Heavy Packers Anonymous.
Even for an Emperor, this was far too much luggage.
Still, it was all they had after begging Lan Fan for the key. They shared this room, feigned sleep together,
and now scattered to opposite sides of the earth. Or that's what it was certainly going to feel like.
Roy supposed he would be lucky if he talked to her ever again
at any point
ever.
Sure, the problem was resolved late last night in some respects, but the peace and acceptance
that settled over the room was just a crudely made mask. The sun rose, cut through the curtains
and rudely woke them to the fact that they had said and done all these incredibly significant things
without a clue as to how to deal with it.
Granted,
childhood tragedy, civil war, an endless quest toward questionable redemption,
all of these could understandably hinder a person, even one of great intelligence and determination,
from correctly developing the skills to navigate the kind of relationship more or less classified as 'soulmate'.
So, sure, it was understandable that they were more than a small bit less than prepared as they ventured
forward into a world in which the once unspoken was suddenly spoken, and demanding to be confronted.
This, of course, did not make it any less unbearable.
Roy groaned into his pillow. Riza slipped into Room Four, dressed to the nines in record time, called a car to the hotel,
tapped her foot, watched the clock, tidied up the Rockbell kitchen and then showed up at Winry's door at seven on the dot
with coffee and a fresh apple fritter for the bride.
Needless to say, there was very little time
allocated for the Captain to think.
T'was the very point.
Riza assumed Winry wasn't sleeping anyway.
Weddings threw everyone for a good, discombobulating loop and she would imagine it was the bride
who would spend the most time tossing and turning. Surely enough, Winry had been pacing around
in her robe waiting for her bridesmaids.
Perhaps seven was too early, she thought.
It was.
But, Winry would never understand how grateful Riza was for her abnormally early call time,
considering her ceremony was in the late afternoon. No one else had arrived, of course, nor would they
for another hour after such a late night of celebrating.
Still, Winry was grateful for her friend, her maid of honor,
who perhaps was a little too efficient.
Riza was fully dressed and wedding ready,
brought breakfast,
and wasted no time in plopping Winry down on a chair
to begin brushing through and pinning up her long blonde locks
with no other word but,
"Rise and shine."
Thankfully for the bride, Riza still stood determined not to be left alone with her thoughts.
She would fight. She would forget, She would distract herself and make small talk.
"How did you sleep, Winry?"
"I didn't sleep," she scoffed, "at all."
"Me neither," Riza answered mindlessly, automatically.
She swallowed down all the reasons why she hadn't slept and all the reasons
why she had subconsciously brought up the one topic she wanted to avoid.
"Oh, that's too bad," Winry hummed, "The inn looked quite comfortable."
Riza nodded her head, "Yes, well, it was only that I made a mistake
and booked one room for both the General and-"
Riza's entire being paused,
going oh so still.
For, she couldn't say how she knew Winry was smirking just so,
but when her focus flicked up to meet those big blue eyes in the mirror,
there was far too much mischief in them for so early in the morning.
Riza resumed her work, softly,
"You heard from Ling."
Riza could see perfectly in her mind's eye her undoing all at once:
She and her commanding officer pressed up against the inside of the door to Room Three,
hiding and whispering and waiting to see if the Xingese Emperor or his beloved bodyguard
had in fact heard their very personal, very intimate fiasco in the hallway.
Not only did she slip and fall and allow such a fiasco to take place,
but they had certainly gotten caught.
However, Winry, Riza realized quickly after,
was no mere observer.
There was no 'he said she said' before the rooster crowed.
Ling and Lan Fan were still at the inn.
Winry was no secondary witness,
but the instigator of the whole evening.
"No, I-. Well," Winry stumbled,
"I sort of changed the reservation a month ago-."
Riza so quickly crumbled.
"It cruel, Winry." Riza suddenly cut, softly but not without venom.
Once hearing herself, the Captain reeled back and sighed,
"It's cruel what you're orchestrating."
Riza fought.
She fought off the fact that this all could have been avoided,
this guilt, this distater, and this unwelcome longing for it to continue.
She could suddenly fail her General in a whole new way.
Riza's head reeled. She closed her eyes, clutched the bridge of her nose,
and listened while Winry then began to beg for forgiveness.
"Oh, Miss Riza. I am so sorry. I didn't think it would be a problem. They needed a room for cargo
and, plus, you two are so close. I know you're not allowed on the job to- Well, I thought I could get
you some time alone together and maybe then-"
Riza gave a heavy huff, raised her hand to stop her,
to reassure her gently, "You needed an outlet."
Winry blinked,
not realizing how true that had been until this very moment. Normally, she knew she wouldn't have
made such a move, insinuating something that she knew Riza had always so fervently resisted.
But, it was the Wedding.
The planning was detailed and stressful and expensive and omnipresent in her life for months.
She wanted to skip all the filler and cut to her life with Ed. That, of course, was impossible. There was no shortcut.
But, there was the opportunity for a most effective distraction. Their two bedroom reservation
was just begging to be changed. Winry could kill two birds with one stone:
Ling needed room for his luggage
and Riza needed a husband.
Bada-bing.
Bada-boom.
So, Winry did in fact, in this moment, find herself guilty of subconsciously latching onto this:
Riza Hawkeye's own happily ever after, thrown in and disguised as just a part of the wedding festivities.
An outlet, Riza had summed up. By the grimace on her face, Winry's little outlet
appeared to have turned sour. Cruel, she had bit.
She spoiled her friend's stay in Resembool and maybe even her chances with the man
Winry had a lot of money on Riza marrying. So, if anything, it was a very poor move financially.
Winry swallowed the bit of shame and watched her toes, feeling enough foolishness for
Riza to quickly intervene her inner scolding. Riza saw those eyes lose their sparkle
and knew she only said it out of bitterness.
She was twenty-nine.
Twenty-nine and caught with such a strange piece of herself so weak, so foolish,
and ever so slightly jealous of Winry Rockbell and her silly little party, not so much the dress,
or the rings, or the cake, but the forever.
She could suddenly fail her General in a whole new way.
Riza fought. Riza snuffed that piece before she could think.
"It was- It wasn't an issue, Winry," she said as blue eyes looked up to a feigned smile in the mirror.
She could, in some frame of mind, consider Winry's scheme as a merciful gift.
But, that morning,
Riza chose to fight, to forget.
"But, you're clearly upset, " Winry bit her lip, stuck between guilt and hopefulness when she asked, "Did something actually happen?"
Riza took pause with her hands on the young bride's shoulders.
No, she decided. She would forget. She would fight.
Her eyebrows perked, and she huffed while the young,
caring trickster waited on the edge of her seat,
"You read far too many romance novels, Winry."
The Captain smirked just so, holding no grudge.
Winry was put at ease, huffing out a laugh
"Hey, I've got to get my fix somewhere." she shrugged, "Ed doesn't have a romantic bone in his body.
So, I have to read about the grand proposals and the confessions of love, kisses in the rain, all that."
"How quaint," Riza said through the hairpins she held in her mouth, avoiding how appealing
any of those fantasies most suddenly might be. Such worlds were never meant for her, Riza Hawkeye,
so why would she ever want to exist in one?
Even just for one more day.
Riza fought.
Winry played with a free strand of hair as she hummed,
"Of course, Edward's idea of a proposal was referencing equivalent exchange."
"Very fitting," Riza watched her own smile be out shined when Winry grinned oh so fondly as she admit to the mirror, "He's a moron…"
Winry pondered the fact.
"Everyone deserves their own moron, I think. You included." Winry added practically watching
the words fall onto Riza's tongue as she began a default quip,
"I-" already have one, Riza just so nearly finished.
But, she thankfully caught herself and tsk-ed off Winry's silly trickery, those blue eyes giving
way to a touch of revealing disappointment. Winry clearly couldn't help it.
She needed an outlet.
Riza dutifully steered her back on track.
"Today is about you and Edward," She said steadily, pining off another long blonde lock,
"Leave my relationship with the General out of it."
Winry, like an addict, turned sharply to her, "Relationship?"
Riza grabbed her shoulders and turned her right back.
"Fine," Winry whined, sighed and looked up, straight into the mirror.
She frowned at her reflection, most reluctantly, most finally, peering past the surface,
and saw staring right back at her
her deepest,
greatest
fear.
It was a moment of heavy silence
before Winry finally let the words free.
"What if I'm not ready?"
Riza knew every woman,
every man,
in every country,
in every era of time
must have asked themselves the very same question on the morning of their wedding.
And, just as every maid of honor, every bridesmaid, Riza reassured,
"You're ready,"
and just as every bride might,
Winry didn't seem to believe it.
So, for a moment they sat there. Winry chewed on her lip and watched Riza twist her hair
into a pretty bun, then she most unexpectedly asked,
"Do you know why I picked you as my maid-of-honor?"
"I'm punctual?" Riza quipped dryly.
It was a reasonable point, to be sure.
Winry smiled as much as she could, forcing her mind to finally focus on herself,
on this day, on the future, on the hypotheticals, the probabilities, the possibilities.
She nodded softly,
"We've grown really close and-"
Riza watched Winry hesitate,
still Winry fought.
"You are everything I want to be."
Riza's hands stopped. Her heart stopped.
Winry clutched the seat of her chair and explained meekly.
"During the Promised Day," Winry murmured, "During that whole time, I was the hostage.
I couldn't do anything to help. I was paralyzed with this fear and-
"I was so surprised at how useless I could be."
Winry looked to a Riza frozen stiff.
"But you. You are strong and fearless, and unstoppable.
You make your dreams happen despite-"
Winry hesitated once more.
Winry said that word
fear.
Winry said the word and, for Riza, the mess scattered on the floor of Room Three, those pieces
of herself that she hadn't bothered to collect before she left, all of those pieces put themselves back together.
She left that morning to fight and forget.
She left and all she knew was the feeling in the bottom of her gut
and in the pit of her throat, impossibly heavy and terribly dense.
Winry said the word fear,
and Riza realized she was afraid.
She was so afraid.
Yet, this beautiful sweet-hearted young bride
idolized her and called her fearless.
Winry did not know all of the gruesome details of Riza's demons. But, she knew enough.
She knew enough and still she called Riza fearless and ardently hoped she would fall in love,
put on a white dress and find someone to have and to hold her in bad and awful, terrible and worse,
and all the chance times she could allow herself to be happy.
The fact that Riza Hawkeye rediscovered a part of herself that could actually long for such a future, it terrified her.
She was no a hero. She was a hostage.
She was helpless
and useless
and scared.
For, she would fail her General in a whole new way,
wishing for the very thing that would bring him down.
"It's silly," Winry huffed finally, "But what if it happens again, Riza.
That uselessness and that...fear."
Riza's jaw went slack as her mind raced fruitlessly, and she panicked.
Riza panicked and looked to anchor herself in Winry's big blue eyes.
She was twenty-nine and petrified,
and had nothing to say
to this young budding bride,
nothing but, "I am not fearless, Winry."
Winry's face dropped, disappointment, hope fading.
She was looking for answers, encouragement.
Riza had none. Riza was lost.
Riza would fail her General in a whole new way.
"I was a hostage too, Winry, and I am anything but fearless," she said straight,
leaving no room for a debate. Winry nodded as she knew.
Winry knew it was not real, the tireless courage she wished for.
Riza swallowed the lump in her throat, pinning off the blonde bun now delicately sculpted into Winry's hair.
The Captain knew she could only offer what she had to tell herself.
Riza circled around to kneel in front of Winry's chair, fingers brushing up to fashion the bride's bangs,
"However, fear is a very good thing to possess, you know."
She smoothed the blonde strands that hung loose to frame Winry's face then matched
those anxious blue eyes with a pair of steady browns.
"It means you have something to lose."
"So, you fight harder," Winry nodded softly.
Riza smiled warmly, "Yes, precisely."
"But, don't be mistaken, Winry," Riza reached up, held her shoulders surely, and told her the magnificent
difference between the two of them, "You will never be useless. You and Edward fought for this.
I cannot tell you what your future holds, but you fought for this, for life, and love.
"You two must enjoy it now."
Winry then gave a smile, so confident
and relieved and fearless
it could not help but to be contagious.
Winry Rockbell and Riza Hawkeye, their similarities, their common battle
with this fear unmatched; their stories were never to end in the same way.
But, such a smile so confident,
and relived and fearless,
and ready.
Riza breathed in and knew she would not yield in her fight for the future. She would forgo her found
longing for such fanciful dreams, forget the night before with the heat and the lust and the fluttering of her foolish heart.
She would forget because she must.
Despite fear, she would fight.
She was ready.
and then he knocked.
First, to that smile, Riza gave one of her own, warm and radiant, a rare sighting to be sure.
Winry giggled from a thought while Riza dropped her sure grip on her shoulders to hold her hands,
"What's so funny?"
Winry just blinked at Riza, evaluating her dress, her hair, her face, her smile, her strength
not a piece that wouldn't drive General Mustang wild. So, Winry cocked her head and grinned,
"You'd make a beautiful bride, you know."
"Unbelievable," Riza rolled her eyes, tossing Winry's hands back into her lap.
"What?" Winry laughed, "It's true. Now," she schemed while Riza stilled, hearing footsteps,
"Are you sure nothing happened at the-"
then he knocked.
a/n i love me some Riza/Winry sistery moments. keep an eye on this for the next two weeks,
there should be four or five chapters. leave me your thoughts, loves