Authors note: Though I will admit I've been writing for a few years this is the first time I've ever had the guts to actually post anything. This isn't betaed, so any mistakes are mine and mine alone. I've only watched the anime and know very little about the manga so it may differ a little from what it should be. All feed back will be graciously accepted.
Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist, and even if I did I wouldn't change a thing. Also the song that I've somehow managed to incorporate into this is Nightwish's "I Wish I Had An Angel" I make no claim to them either.
Summary: A reflection of sort by three characters who I think a closer than they appear. A series of one shots in no particular order. I realise that this is probably a little AUish so I apologise in advance if people have a hard time following.
Dirty Little Secrets
Second star to the right, then on till morning
I wish I had an angel
For one moment of love
I wish I had your angel
tonight
Some days he doesn't know why they do it. He feels the warmth of her skin and remembers the heat of the desert where they first met. His fingers curl around her dog tags and he remembers the countless he ripped from the bodies of the dead. Her eyes, her eyes remind him so much of theirs, the people they massacred. Yet he wouldn't have it any other way.
She's like a goddess as she lies in his arms. He knows that it's wrong, she reminds him of that every time he touches her. But he long ago stopped caring; she's his dirty little secret, his unforgivable sin. Because she loves him and in some sick and twisted way he loves her as well. He loves that she'll never leave him, he loves that she'll never tell, he loves that there's one person in this godforsaken world that can predict his every want and need.
But he also loves the way her hair shines in the moonlight and that curve at the small of her back where his fingers love to play. The small sounds she makes when his lips meet the base of her neck make him want to cry out at the unfairness of it all.
His fingers run a butterfly dance over the scars that run down her back. He asked her once how she got them, it was a long time before she answered but when she did it was a near inaudible whisper.
"In the war," she told him. He didn't press for details, some things were better left unsaid. He had a hard enough time dealing with his memories of that awful place, anything that could bring that sheen of tears to her eyes he didn't want to know about.
But being able to touch her skin reminds him of why he fought to survive that war. He had more than one opportunity to just let it all go, but every time he kept on, never letting them have the upper hand. Then she came into his life and he was given a reason to live. She was always there; though he never saw her he knew she could always see him. Whether it was through the scope of her gun or from the watchtower she always had his back. His guardian angel. For ten long months she protected him, and yet they never met, never talked.
And now they're here, naked and sweaty on her apartment floor having not made it to the bed for the third night in a row. He extinguishes the oil lamp on the coffee table behind them and pulls her into his arms. She resists, as always, but he hushes her pulling her body tight against his, her breath tickles at his neck. Standing he walks the two of them into the bedroom, taking the time to memorise her features before placing her softly on the bed. By the time he's pulled the covers over her she's already asleep.
Deep into a dying day
I took a step outside an innocent heart
Prepare to hate me fall when I may
This night will hurt you like never before
He watches as she twists in the sheets, whimpering at what he can only wonder. He hates to watch her like this, yet he never wakes her because he fears what it is that could possibly bring her to this state.
It doesn't happen as often as it used to, the change in her body temperature is usually the first indication she's having a nightmare. Her fevered body shakes next to his and he wonders how it is that he can ignore her pain when it's so obvious to him. He reaches out to touch her but stops as her back arches in what he knows could only be extreme pleasure or extreme pain. The cry that escapes her lips a moment later leads him to believe the latter. Then the tears start, she usually brings herself out before she starts to cry, but tonight she seems so lost that he thinks she may never come back.
He wants to hold her, he wants the tears to stop and he wants her pain to stop. But if he can't even stop his own pain how can he possibly help her.
"You're a coward Roy Mustang." he thinks.
Suddenly his senses are alert, he's awake and it takes a moment to figure out why. Blood, he can smell blood. Her nails are digging into her thighs, she's whimpering and blood runs onto the sheets from where her nails have broken the delicate skin. He grabs her wrists, trying in vain to rip her hands away, to stop her from hurting herself anymore. She starts screaming, not whimpering, not crying screaming. He doesn't know who she thinks he is, but right now he doesn't want to know. Pulling her upright in his arms he shakes her as hard as he can, calling out to her, begging her to hear him. Her eyes shoot open but she isn't seeing him and the next thing he knows he's flat on his back on the floor and she's curled up in the corner sobbing.
Old loves they die hard
Old lies they die harder
"You love him, don't you?" She didn't look up, she knew he was standing behind her and she knew the voice like she knew his, in every way possible.
"You don't have to say anything, it doesn't matter to me. Not anymore."
She looks up at him now, unable to place the emotion that clouds his eyes. It finally comes to her, anger. The reason she'd had such a hard time placing it was because he'd never really directed it at her before, at least not for a very long time. But the fact that he was angry at her leads her to believe that maybe he still did care even though he shouldn't, at least not anymore.
"You can't have it both ways you know. And just so you know you gave up your right to care what happens to me when you got married." He sat down beside her, sliding a glass of high proof whiskey into her hands.
"I don't drink," she says moving to push it away. He laughs then but it doesn't sound right, not like it used to.
"I remember differently" he replies before taking a sip from his own glass.
She stares at it for a minute before finally bringing it to her lips, relishing in the sensation as the alcohol burned her throat.
"Shouldn't you be at home with your family?" she says as she downs the last of her drink before getting up to leave. I wish I had an angel
For one moment of love
I wish I had your angel
Your Virgin Mary undone
I`m in love with my lust
Burning angel wings to dust
I wish I had your angel tonight
As he watches her from across the camp an odd thought hits him.
"We could all be dead tomorrow." The thought comes as somewhat of a surprise to him, but not more so than the immediate response. Jumping up he walks over to her, not wanting to seem too presumptuous for fear of her fist connecting with his face.
"Maes, what is it?" she asks. She can see something in his eyes, something she can't identify. He takes her by the hand and pulls her across the camp into an unused tent. As soon as they're inside he pushes her against the wall, his lips following in quick succession.
"We could die tomorrow" he tells her. She grips onto his shirt, still unsure of what he wants from her. This thought has occurred to her as well, though as of yet she's had no defiant decision as to what to do about it.
"What do you want from me?" she asks, a little scared. His hand comes up cupping her breast through her uniform.
"I'm sorry" he whispers. She understands now.
"Don't be" she tells him. This time it's her lips that meet his, tentatively at first then a little more confidant.
As her shirt drops to the floor she forces herself to stop, his eyes meet hers and he knows that something just changed.
"I've never done this before" she whispers to him. He stops now too. She's nineteen just two years younger than him, he knows he should stop to let her think this through properly but he doesn't want to, because he doesn't want to think this through properly. But he doesn't want to hurt her either, so he does the responsible thing.
"Do you want me to stop?" he asks. She thinks this over for a moment, he's running his fingers through her hair almost like he's trying to keep her calm. She makes a decision then, one that gets her through that night and the rest of the nights to follow.
"We could die tomorrow" she tells him. I`m going down so frail and cruel
Drunken disguise changes all the rules
They stood there for hours after everyone else had left, both of them remembering him for what he was to them. They stood there until the rain came, and for some time after too. It was late when they finally returned to headquarters, the office was quiet, devoid of life and to her it seemed somewhat appropriate to the situation. He went straight to his office, not bothering to offer her words.
She sat at her desk for what seemed like hours, though she had no idea why she stayed. He wouldn't want to talk to her, but still it was her duty to make sure he was alright. She made a promise and now that promise meant more than ever.
On the other side of the door empty bottles littered the floor. He cursed the people who took him away, away from his family, his friends, his duty. But even more he cursed his ambition and the promises that had come with it, he cursed her. Now more than ever he wanted her out of his life, he wanted to protect her, not because she couldn't protect herself but because, now she was all he had left. Her and his ambition.
But she'd never leave him, he knew that much and for that he hated her. He hated the fact that her life would probably end with her throwing herself in front of a bullet meant for him. He just lost his best friend to that sort of stupid loyalty, he didn't want to loose her that way too. If he thought hating her would drive her away then he'd scream at her, throw things, lay all his losses, his faults at her feet. But it wouldn't do him any good, she'd never leave.
It didn't surprise him when he looked up to find her amber eyes full of concern. It didn't surprise him that he hadn't heard her come in. What did surprise him was when she knelt in front of him, her hands cupping his face and the guilt shone through her eyes barely held back by unshed tears.
"I can't change what happened. Believe me if I could I wouldn't hesitate, but I can try to help you forget if only for tonight. A very good friend did this for me once during the war, it kept me sane, kept me going, let me forget if only for a little while. He's gone now, but I'm still here."
Her hands went to the button at her throat and she let the military jacket that always held her so strong fall to the floor. She undid the clip that held her hair in place and guided his hand to sit atop her heart.
"Only if you want it," she told him. He looked deep into her eyes and asked her only one question.
"Why?" She studied his face for a moment before telling him what she'd told someone else so long ago.
"We could all be dead tomorrow."
That was all he needed. He barely registered the buttons of her shirt popping under his strength or the startled gasp that escaped her lips when he pushed her forcefully to the floor. All that registered was that she was there and willing, willing to help him forget. Because after all they could be dead tomorrow. Old loves they die hard
Old lies they die harder
She tries not to think too much anymore, she's suffered too many sleepless nights after trudging up memories of a past she wishes she hadn't lived. Life isn't something she relishes anymore. She's lost too much to continue giving a damn about all but one thing. That promise she made. That God damn bloody promise. That promise that for more than a decade has run her life off the rails. That promise that made her human again, the promise that kept her from eating her gun after they returned from that sandy hell.
Love, honour and obey. Well if that was all that was involved in a marriage then they should have tied the knot years ago cause that pretty much described their relationship to the letter. But then again she wasn't sure that unrequited love counted. That's what she told herself anyway, that he didn't love her, that it was all in her head. It was how she kept herself sane every day.
She'd spent years watching the never ending line of women traipse in and out of his life. Some days it made her angry, other days it just made her realise how tired she was. The fact that his body kept her warm most nights now would not convince her otherwise. The world had a sick and twisted sense of humour and she knew she'd go through her life being unloved, her Daddy had made her well aware of that fact at the tender age of five.
Standing under a spray of scalding water she lets herself relax a little as the heat of the water strips away some of the emotional pain, replacing it instead with the physical. But sooner than she'd like the shower runs cold and she's forced to step away. Staring at herself in the mirror she's reminded of far too many things.
Her life is drawn across her body in scars, like some morbid artists attempt to capture the world, her world, and keep it hidden away only to be seen in the moonlight and talked about in hushed tones. Sometimes her back still burns at the memory, and come winter her shoulder cramps if she doesn't move it often enough. He asked her once, saying that she'd seen too much in her life.
But the scars ran deeper than the skin that covers her body, they run all the way to her heart, to her soul. Places she swore she'd never leave open to invasion again. Yet somehow he'd found a back door past her defences, they both had. But now one of them sat six feet underground and the other one was so far from her reach that to get to him she'd have to drown first.
Slipping on the over sized shirt she slept in she covered the scars and silently crawled back into bed. He hadn't woken in her absence and for that she was grateful, he didn't need to know her dirty little secrets. He had his own pain to deal with. I wish I had an angel
For one moment of love
I wish I had your angel
Your Virgin Mary undone
I`m in love with my lust
Burning angel wings to dust
I wish I had your angel tonight
It was like being thrown into hell. The days were long and hot, sometimes it seemed like the sun would never set but when it did the cold came. But no matter what hot or cold they were always surrounded by sand. In the years to come she would hate the sand, but she would hate the cold more.
She couldn't believe he'd gotten himself cornered, she couldn't believe he was in that part of the city to begin with. But what's more, she couldn't believe that she'd been ordered to go and get his sorry ass back to their lines. Apparently he'd wondered off during a patrol, something to do with a Dr. Marcho. She didn't particularly care what happened to the doctor, he was someone else's problem, but him Major Roy Mustang, he was her problem.
Honestly though she'd been given a relatively simple task. Six months ago when the latest brigade of alchemists had been brought to the front line they'd each been assigned a sniper to keep them alive. Yes she had other jobs as well, but her primary mission in this little piece of hell was to keep him alive. And she'd be damned if she went back to camp without him.
Dropping into an alleyway she stayed hidden as an enemy patrol passed her position. She probably could have taken them out alone but that would be contrary to her primary mission, and she could hardly rescue someone if she had to spend the rest of the night avoiding the enemy.
She had a fairly good idea of where he would be, she knew the patrol's route and that paired with sightings of Marcho within the city narrowed down her search area considerably. Though as it turned out finding him was the easy part. She heard the screams before she smelt the burning of human flesh, but she knew it was him. No one would be dumb enough to attack the enemy in the middle of their territory, alone and in the middle of the night. No one it appeared except for Major Mustang.
"If the enemy militia doesn't kill him I may very well have to do it myself, if only to be sure he knows how utterly stupid he's been," she thought to herself. He seemed to be holding his own for the moment but she knew that if they didn't get out soon they'd be overrun. Climbing onto the roof she made her way down the street, locating her target she set herself up to dispose of their current problem. The patrol team she'd avoided not ten minutes earlier.
She managed to take down three of them before anyone knew what was going on, and that was her mistake. War makes people jumpy, the sort of jumpy that causes someone to shoot at one of their own because they can no longer differentiate friend from foe.
She always thought that being burnt would feel hot, but as the fire crawled along the roof and up her back it felt like ice. That was when she found out the good thing about the sand, it was good for smothering flames. She knew she couldn't let the pain get to her, she had to move past it. She had to get him and get back to the front line where there was back up and a medical unit waiting for them.
She practically fell off the roof, taking out the final member of the enemy patrol sometime during her fall. Then she grabbed his hand and ran. She didn't care what he wanted right now, she had her orders. Besides if she stopped now then she'd start to cry, and if she started now she feared she'd never stop. So they ran, back into the arm of murders, back to salvation.
She hated the cold. Greatest thrill
Not to kill
But to have the prize of the night
Hypocrite
Wannabe friend
13th disciple who betrayed me for nothing!
Even though she lay in his arms he still had a hard time believing she was real. The feel of her body against his was an all too real reminder of how close they came to loosing each other.
He remembers waking up in the hospital, her hand clenched tightly around his. Her other arm sat snugly in a sling close enough to her body to protect it, yet far away enough not to cause undue pain. In the hour or so that she lay sleeping beside him he came to a realisation. He loved her, more then life itself. He'd used her for years, yet she'd never faulted. She was still here, despite all he'd done to her.
He'd made a promise that day, no more. He wouldn't hold her at arms length only to use her and throw her away again. He'd show her how it felt to be loved, that maybe, just maybe he was worth another shot, that she wasn't just the position she'd held all these years. But now weeks later she lay in his arms and he found himself wondering if he was back in Ishbal, hallucinating from the heat and dehydration.
He didn't know why she gave him another chance, he sure as hell didn't deserve it but she gave it to him none the less. Looking down he found a pair of amber eyes studying his face.
"Penny for your thoughts?" she asked. He looked at her for a moment with his good eye, and thanked whatever deity responsible for her presence.
"What did I ever do to deserve you?" he asked her.
Her head cocked to the side, almost like she couldn't comprehend someone actually being able to care for her.
"I think I should be the one asking you that question," she replied. He shook his head grasping her face firmly between his hands.
"Why? I've treated you like shit for God only knows how long. I've been a burden to you since before I could even recognise your face. Yet somehow you're the undeserving one. Do you really believe that you're that hard to love?"
She didn't have to answer him, he could suddenly see it all in her eyes.
Someone had broken her. A long time ago someone had taken a little girl and made her believe that she wasn't worth it. It had been driven into her so hard that she believed it with her heart and soul.
"My Daddy told me so," she whispered into his chest. He pulled her face away from his chest, forcing her to stare into his eye.
"Your Daddy was a bastard," he told her.
"But he wasn't wrong Roy. It's been over two decades since someone said those words to me, you can't even say it to me. So was he really that wrong about me?" He looked into those desperate eyes and hated the man who'd put that look in her eyes without ever knowing him.
"I love you, more than life itself," he told her before capturing her lips in a kiss, never wanting to let her go.
Last dance, first kiss
Your touch, my bliss
Beauty always comes with dark thoughts
She remembers standing by the lakeside as a child, watching as her father cast away all that was left of them. Her brother, her mother. They were both gone now, nothing she could ever do with her life could change that.
She knew that he blamed her for the fact that they didn't come back, she knows that he wishes it was her body that they'd put in the ground. He never wanted a daughter, what use was a daughter. She couldn't carry on the family name, she couldn't bring honour to her family. She was a burden to him, nothing more and nothing less. She was five years old, she was meant to be a child but the day they died she grew up.
It was they day she decided to join the army, the day she decided that she was going to push herself to her limits and beyond. If only to honour their memory she would be what they had wanted to be. The military was her brothers dream, so she would live that for him, university had been the dream her mother had never been able to live so she'd do that too.
At thirteen she ran from a place she no longer considered home to find the things that they had longed for so badly. Her grandfather had taken her in once she reached Central City, putting her through school allowing her to live out their dreams. She joined the military at fifteen, they put her through university allowed her to live up to her potential.
Two days after her nineteenth birthday the war with the Ishbalan's broke out. She'd topped all her classes, she was the perfect model of a solider, one of the best sharp shooters the army had ever seen. She was given the rank of Sergent and along with all the others she graduated with not three months earlier and sent off to strip innocents of their lives.
The first time she put a bullet into a man's skull she found herself thinking of her brother and wondering if this was really what he wanted. The next time she didn't think at all, she didn't want to know what they'd think of her now. So she painted the desert red, letting what was left of that little girl by the lakeside die in the desert beside the victims of her ambition.
That day she became a solider, a dog of the military. I wish I had an angel
For one moment of love
I wish I had your angel
Your Virgin Mary undone
I`m in love with my lust
Burning angel wings to dust
I wish I had your angel tonight
They all had their dirty little secrets, some more than others. As he felt the edge of the blade rub against its sheath, he thought about all the things he knew. He was in intelligence, it was his job to know things that he shouldn't.
When she'd first started serving Roy as an aide he'd gone through her military records, medical records, family history. Yes they'd spent three years at the academy together, but he'd be damned if he knew a single thing about her. After his investigation though he almost found himself wishing he hadn't. She was a very private person, he knew that there was a reason for this, there were things that no one needed to know. He understood this now.
He remembers the scars on her body as he reads through her medical records, placing each injury to the reports. He remembers the tattoo on her lower back as her reads the disciplinary report from her time at the academy. There's only one, she never got into trouble again after that. He reads her psychological profile, the notations the officer made when they evaluated her to become a sniper. He reads the commendations from her previous commanding officers, and makes note of the five valour medals she received in less than a year of active combat in Ishbal.
Tucked away in the back of her file is a photo and a police report from a small town he's never heard of. The file is a report of the murder of a mother and son by a group of drunk military officers at a checkpoint outside the town. And slid into the back of the file with the photo attached is a missing persons report. Elizabeth Amara Hawkeye, Age 13. And an article from a remote area newspaper, a miner killed in a cave in at a local coal mine.
He never met her family, the only person there for her at her graduation was her grandfather. It answered a lot of questions though, it explained the soft cries he heard through the wall each night. Elizabeth Amara Hawkeye died age 13, all that was left now was her. And he forced himself to wonder if she knew, after all she hadn't been home in over a decade.
But then again it was none of his business, part of being in intelligence was forgetting what you're not meant to know. So he shut the file and hid it away where he'd never find it again. The he collected his coat and went to meet her for dinner. There were some things that people just didn't need to know. I wish I had an angel
I wish I had an angel
I wish I had an angel
I wish I had an angel