this one's called, "how much can a overwrite a ridiculously vague piece?"
I never bought any of the post-promised day hospital shots I've read.
I think they were there for a long time. And, I think it was complicated.
And, I'm definitely avoiding my smut with pure and utter angst.
Oh, my poor babies.
Enjoy.
Contrary to what one might anticipate,
it was not a joyous reunion.
He requested that she stay with him
in the same room,
their beds separated
by only three feet of a nightstand.
He couldn't see.
He needed an aid, he said.
She was his aid.
His vice.
Always had been.
The doctors agreed.
It was the best option.
Mustang had lost his sight, but he also had through and through
stab wounds on both hands prone to severe infection,
as well as a concussion
just to add a cherry on top.
Hawkeye still lacked a major volume of her blood
and had a freshly stitched slit across her carotid.
Yes, supervision was ideal,
a bunk buddy was ideal,
and it seemed wrong to separate them
after everything. But, the reunion was-
They had not spoken.
Three or four, give or take or give,
so many days since admission.
They alternated pretending to sleep
while the other was awake, had visitors, ate meals.
They both could admit
it had become quite extreme.
The men didn't comment. Perhaps it was the trauma.
The Colonel and his Lieutenant. They ignored each other.
Their reunion after everything,
all of it, the post-mortem was
silence.
Roy was blind, but he could still see
red gushing, spreading, coating the tile,
endless.
He could smell iron in the air,
invisible, inextinguishable blood.
His breathing was deep,
fighting off shock.
breath in and breath out.
Day one, two, three, four
give or take or give.
He stared at the ceiling,
Riza saw the same,
felt the same,
the cold and the slice
over and over, but she could open her eyes,
stare at the IV bag, outline her bandage,
ground herself.
It was over.
They did not speak.
She winked an eye open often, having the luxury
of checking on Roy without getting caught.
He was not sleeping.
Neither was she.
They both asked for stronger sedatives.
It did not work. They did not sleep.
They did not speak.
Their reunion was not joyous.
It was painful, callous,
cold.
Alas, the fallout was inevitable.
She wished they had separate rooms.
He stumbled blindly to the bathroom,
four in the morning. She wasn't asleep.
They did not speak until she
involuntarily, accidentally,
regretfully
said,
"Bedpost."
He flinched in her direction,
blinked at her bed, "Huh?"
"You're about to run into it, Sir."
"Oh."
"Inch to the left. Then forward."
"Right."
She wished they had separate rooms.
He wished she hadn't said anything.
The chain reaction was imminent.
The inevitable was unavoidable.
They were foolish, stupid
to think otherwise.
"I would have done it."
He did not move.
Not an inch to the left.
Not forward.
He just stared at the floor,
held onto her bedpost.
Riza sat up, sighed.
She didn't want to talk.
Roy wanted to go back to bed.
The Lieutenant said "Bedpost,"
and it was all over. Damn it.
"I would have done it."
"No." She said, solidly.
She knew what he meant, what he saw
in his mind's eye while he grit his teeth,
and clinched his jaw.
"I was going to do it. I would have done it."
"You would not have." The Lieutenant told her Colonel.
She had orders. She was not to die.
She was to watch his back, and stop him,
shoot him, if he even dared to give in to that kind of evil.
But, to be honest, her position in that moment,
cold on the floor, she had no power,
no blood, no pistol,
no physical capability to hold him back.
He knew.
He was so close
before she gave her signal.
Too close.
"Yes," his voice a caustic whisper, crushing the bedpost
under his hand. "I was going to. I planned to."
"I was going to save you,"
He knew very well he could've committed the crime,
the ultimate sin, the irreparable,
abhorrent, deplorable act,
human transmutation,
He would have done it.
Then and there, he felt,
no, he knew he would have buckled
under the weight of air full of red iron.
"I did not care about the rest. They could all burn.
I did not care, I was going to do it."
Roy twisted the knob, the wooden top of that bedpost.
He clenched it until his knuckles were white.
His face flushed into a red hot,
burning, hatred.
For himself. How could he consider such a thing?
Then again. How could he not?
His mind waged war on itself.
what kind of man would-
well, perhaps a man that-
He felt the bedpost might splinter.
I was going to do it.
"No."
"Riza."
"Colonel,"
She demanded.
She was in front of him.
He could feel her in front of him.
He pulled at his hair, buried his hands,
wanting to snatch it all. He wanted the pain,
the punishment.
"Do you understand what I'm telling you."
"I understand, Sir."
Your precious woman is dying, Mustang.
Roy huffed, he couldn't breathe.
What will it be?
"You don't. I would have done it.
I would have done it because I -"
"Stop."
Riza raised her hand, raised her voice,
sliced through his words,
shot him down,
cut him at the knees.
Insubordination be damned.
This was not about pecking order.
This was not about the Colonel and his Lieutenant.
This wasn't about anything.
There was no story here.
It did not matter.
"I understand what you are telling me. I am not a fool."
Riza snapped, rushed, spitting out so many more words
at once than she ever had before. "If we were simple.
If we were whole," She shook her head clear.
"No," She said, "You would not have done it.
We are not whole. We are not simple.
So, it doesn't matter."
She had rushed. She had struggled.
But, just as quickly
she solidified.
They had not spoken. Three days,
four days, give or take or give.
They had not spoken, for this, they knew
would be the result,
precisely this.
Roy would say something like this,
admit feeling like this about all of it,
about her,
and then where would they be?
Better than where they were, Roy felt,
he thought for three or four,
so many days straight.
But, Riza, for one, could not trust herself
not to crumble, not to admit the same.
"For us, Sir, It's irrelevant," so she said.
"Excuse me?" Roy protested.
"You would not have done You know this."
She stepped away, turned,
half way to her bed.
Even blind, he caught her arm.
"You don't get off that easily."
Roy Mustang was the only one
ever willing to fight Riza Hawkeye.
She was three feet away three, four,
however many days straight,
radio silence.
He needed contact,
He needed proximity.
He needed her, and he needed
her to understand.
"It's over."
He was blind. Their goals were gone,
He would have done it for her.
It was over now,
all that they had worked for.
You would expect him to be defeated.
Instead, in the dark, he was relieved.
He would have done it for her.
In the dark, now, he could say why.
but Riza bit her lip.
She bit it all back,
"No. This is a waste of time."
It was not over. He was dead wrong.
They needed to stop talking.
But, he still held her wrist, tugged her back to him.
Riza. Riza broke, "It does not matter."
He scoffed, "Others would argue the exact opposite-"
"You did not perform the transmutation," She put her foot down,
"You did not do it for the very same reason I asked you not to,"
Colonel, Please, she whimpered then, dying.
Do not sacrifice everything. For my sake.
Riza pulled her arm free and started to plead.
"We chose. Because, you and me-
It does not matter. "
Roy's jaw hung useless, he heard her voice grow
tight. He heard her break. It was the closest
she had been to crying, sobbing
since Lust.
Since she just knew he was gone, and every piece
of her body, every cell, every organ,
every part of her soul
became necrotic,
toxic, dead.
Yet, there now, the tears did not come.
Instead, it was her voice that betrayed her.
Instead, she grit her teeth, and seethed,
and shattered into a million tiny pieces.
Roy would not have seen her tears.
She could've cried freely, undetected,
but she didn't.
Heaven forbid Riza grieve in peace.
Instead, her voice betrayed her, and Roy flinched,
froze ice cold when she backed away,
and used his rank.
"Please, Colonel."
His Lieutenant, his best friend,
Riza. She shook.
"I am begging you. Do not make this matter."
They didn't speak for how many days,
so many days, three or four,
give or take or give.
Their reunion was not joyous.
They said nothing. They said nothing,
because if they spoke, they would finally
say it,
and it would destroy everything.
"It is not over. Do not make this matter,"
she pleaded, "Not now."
Not now.
Not now, when they had their whole world ahead of them.
They survived, and having done so,
as cruel as it was,
there were consequences
Many would find the fire, the blood,
the smoke giving way to a clear blue sky.
It would be clarifying for most,
freeing.
For the Colonel and the Lieutenant, after all that,
the blood and fire, and the clear blue sky.
They were trapped.
Their terrible fate, it just grew more excruciating
by the second, more unjust, utterly unfair.
After all that.
There was nothing for them.
The fact that there would never be a Roy,
a Riza, only a Lieutenant and a Colonel.
It stung worse. It hurt more,
after all that.
The pain wouldn't go away,
unless they stopped talking
right now.
"Please."
Roy was caught. He had no choice.
He had to let her go
just as he had to in the tunnels,
cold and gray and bleeding on the floor.
He had to. It was crucial.
It was the most good for the most people.
He had to let her go,
again.
Even so, he couldn't help it, stepping to her.
She flinched backward. He felt it.
Roy raked fingers through his hair again,
a pained frown, defeated, hopeless.
After all that.
To continue speaking like this, about this,
It would slice through further,
cut even deeper,
to an irreparable degree.
She understood what he was telling her,
and he understood why she begged him to stop.
Please don't make it matter.
Not now.
Roy nodded, gave in, agreed.
as much as he could, "It doesn't matter."
Riza was shamefully short of breath, in panic,
desperate for a comfort undeserved.
She tripped over her feet, her involuntarily step.
She stepped to him, grasped his shirt.
Roy's hands found her waist.
He followed up her arms,
grazed the rough bandages strangling her neck.
He cringed. He smelled the iron, felt the blood under his toes.
I would have done it.
For her, he would have done it.
Even still, she was right.
He didn't do it
for the very same reason
she begged him not to.
They were irrelevant,
nonessential.
Regardless of how they felt,
even after all of that.
Roy ghosted her cheeks
and got so close.
He hovered her nose,
and gave her peace.
Three words.
"It doesn't matter."
His finger swept the tear off her cheek.
She nodded, a flurry. He rested his forehead on hers.
Three words. The wrong three words,
but the only three words he could ever say
to Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye.
"It doesn't matter."
uh ouch. hopefully this is realistic. they aren't a 'profess their love' sort of couple.
saying it out loud may actually hurt more than it could heal? who knows.
Review review, follow follow. let me know what you think or if you hate me.
Also, read Three, which i'm avoiding.
It's much happier. and funny I think.