Periodic Law
Cephied Variable
Roy Mustang had never dated for love. Once upon a time, he charmed women for fun- dancing and dining and sometimes a little more, these were the pleasures of a young soldier. After Ishbal, he dated for distraction, for relief from the darkness that clouded his vision and the screams and gunfire that would pound along the inside walls of his head every time he shut his eyes. This is when he began to keep his alchemical journals, the ramblings of a desperate man neatly hidden behind the names of elegant civilian women. After a while, dates had become instinct, second nature a listless search for the final few elements to complete his periodic table of smiles, eyes and voices.
Names whirled through his head only loosely attatched to faces and bodies- occasionally he would conjure up a particular date- Nancy in September had sparkling green eyes and an annoying laugh; Madeline in August had a head full of curls and knowledge- however, most of the time the names of women represented nothing more than another scientific metaphor. Rebecca for Cesium (she'd had a voliatile personality), Tatiania for Flouride (she'd had perfect teeth), Selenium was Ysabet who was obsessed with growing plants and Margaret became Colbat thanks to the color of her eyes.
There were only two induviduals who had escaped serialization in his journals despite having been to his bed. Roy acquiesed that these could be called the respective loves of his life- arrantly different, but both so terribly essential because of it. Riza was a world of shoulds and Edward was a world of "I shouldn't and I can't, but I will". They were the distance between what you are wary of because you need it, and what you want because it will destroy you. The parallel between order and chaos, war and peace.
She entered his life with a calm sort of grace. Hard lined and soft smiling, with enough steel in her will to support Roy even on his darkest days. She was woman, perfected, and in all honesty, Roy could not have wished for anyone else to stand by his side in either love or war.
He was a painful, firey sort of passion that burned at both ends and ate from the inside out. There was something about his reckless smile, his devotion, his obsession, his ambition, the way his eyes caught the sunlight, that brought out both the best and worst in Roy, from his deepest, darkest most base desires to his helplessly paternal desire to protect.
Here is a truth about Riza Hawkeye- he cannot live without her. She is as elementary and basic as breathing and, depressingly, just as forgettable until the moment she's gone. He can certainly remember a time when she wasn't there, however he cannot remember exactly what he used to do that made him capable of living like that.
Here is a truth about Edward Elric- he's never wanted anything more. Between the guilt and the pain and the desperate hope for redemption, in all of his dreams tossing and burning he wakes up to the fierce glow of liquid gold eyes only to watch them fade away in the darkness of his bedroom.
Roy had been there with Edward. Lying in their respective beds of shame, using each other as means to an end. He'd hated himself for every moan and gasp and shudder that escaped the boy's body and yet treasured every vicious growl or uttered curse. There was a public show- an obvious smirking, yelling, jabbing sort of affair that entertained the young and old of Amestris alike, however in the dark there was an almost unnerving silence. It was messy, guilty, illegal business but there was an aspect of painfully brutal honesty to it, despite the heavy secrets they kept from each other.
Now he was here with Riza. Roy imagined that he'd finally reached that circled spot on the map with the arrow pointing towards it and was content to underline that arrow with the words 'You Are Here' and make them true. There was breakfast in the morning- quiet laughter, ruminations on the latest news and even a dog curled up at their feet. A domestic life had never been something Roy could picture comfortably, however Riza was just that special kind of woman, mostly because she herself was hardly a domestic person. But most of all, there was an undeniable comfort of being in the care of someone who knows you like the back of her hand. There was no word or action she could not calmly predict, nothing she didn't know about him- except perhaps Edward, and all those things Edward represented (the lack of control, the self indulgent guilt, the memories of dying children that always managed to creep back into his dreams).
He had told himself time and time again that he did not tell her these things because he loved her, although the truth was that he was simply afraid of losing her. But he never thought that he would have to choose between them, nor did he ever imagine that the choice would be so difficult.
"Ful- Edward... You're alive." and it wasn't a question so much as it was a statement; Roy had never been completely convinced that he had been dead in the first place. They were inculpable words, however there was something in the way Roy's body stiffened, and in the way his voice sounded hoarse and broken- something in the way Edward set his hands on his hips and shook his bangs out of his eyes- and suddenly, Hawkeye knew the truth.
Between love and passion, there really was no choice. He felt Riza's calculated gaze burrowing into the back of his head and, in the end, he loved her too much to continue lying. He strode forwards and swept Edward up in a feverish embrace, feeling the places where the boy had grown wider, grown narrower, was perhaps a bit to thin, a bit too ragged- his automail didn't have the same weight to it and his hair had lost some of it's golden sheen. Edward tensed, then relaxed, then slowly wound his arms around Roy's shoulders. Roy sighed, breathed in Edward's scent and breathed out a mourning of all that he would leave behind.