As a very quick introduction to what this story is going to be: just a bunch of Royai shorts of every kind, depending on what ideas come up. I could have gone ahead and made each one its own separate and independent story, but instead combined them into one story because 1) they are quite short 2) I'm trying to keep my writing profile a bit organized 3) I already have more than enough Royai (wait…is there even such thing as more than enough Royai?) 4) I'm too lazy to go into the guidelines and rather dutifully agreeing to the agreement every time I make a new story and 5) a compilation is better than a oneshot at illustrating all the different aspects of Roy and Riza. :)
So, this story is more or less a dump for inspirational orphans to mingle and of course, multiply.
Enjoy!
Blind
After several days of nonstop worry, Hawkeye was finally able to go see the disabled Mustang.
"You can go in now," the nurse gently told her, leading Hawkeye down the hallway to the fourth door on the right. The nurse took the doorknob, knocked, and after a second, slowly opened the door to Mustang's room for her.
Hawkeye thanked her and stepped into the pristine hospital room. Seeing the completely white walls in the small room, her breath caught in her throat and she felt out of place. The room was almost completely unfurnished, except for the window with white blinds that let in bright sunshine, a small table that had a clipboard on top, as well as a nightstand. There was an analog clock too, on the wall opposite her, and two chairs as well, intended for guests or visitors like her.
But she wasn't planning on sitting, and strode up right next to the white sheeted bed where her colonel lay.
His eyes were unfocused, but it was clear he knew who had walked in with at the sound of her military boots, with the silent tremor of the ground under her gait, with the swift whish of her coat, with the soft fragrance that could only belong to his dear…
"Lieutenant," Mustang greeted warmly.
"Colonel," she said in the same manner.
"I haven't heard from you in a long time."
"Neither have I, sir."
"I can't tell, but I'm pretty sure all this time indoors hasn't done my complexion very good."
"It hasn't. You don't seem fit for even a hospital."
He flinched. "That hit my ego."
"Can't be helped. With all due respect, sir, your ego is quite large."
Mustang removed his hands from under his head and lay on his side facing Hawkeye, propping his head up with his left hand. He looked up in the general direction of her talking, and gave her a playful smile.
Genuine, she could tell. Even blind his eyes shone like clear cut obsidian.
"Geez," he sighed, "giving your higher up a hard time even while he's disabled…why don't you cut me some slack now that I'm injured and all?"
"Out of pure curiosity, sir, when do you do any work?"
"Touché," he replied wryly. "Let's try this conversation one more time," and before Hawkeye could object to anything, repeated, "Lieutenant."
She played along, sliding a chair over to the bedside and sitting. "Colonel."
Quickly: "I haven't heard from you in a long time."
"Neither have I, sir."
"I can't tell, but I'm pretty sure all this time indoors hasn't done my complexion very good."
"…No sir, you're looking as dashing as ever."
"Oh?" and she saw that in his straight face, he couldn't help a devilish smile from curling his lips. "Well I do admit that I always make sure I look my best."
"Need not worry about that, sir."
His eyebrows raised. "And why is that, Lieutenant?" his voice dropped to bass, face nearing hers. It was amazing how acute his hearing was to target exactly where her lips where.
"Well sir," she replied, her voice lowering as well. "Simply without any effort at all, you are always ashandsome."
"Is that right?" He leaned in further, his warmth grazing her skin, mouth at her ear, voice now a husky rumble, "As handsome as?"
A rare smile flashed as she sardonically whispered back, "As handsome as Fullmetal's height and the soot in Havoc's lungs."
Mustang flopped onto his back in frustration, and the bed bounced in the same agony. "Oy, Lieutenant, you don't play the game well," he groaned. "And for the moment, I thought you actually meant it," he added with heavy sarcasm.
"I apologize, sir. I don't descend to that level of conversation."
Mustang sighed. "Lieutenant," he said after a moment.
Hawkeye almost rolled her eyes at him to exaggerate her irritation. "Colonel."
"I haven't heard from you in a long time."
"Neither have I, sir," she replied, the response being well rehearsed by the third repetition.
"I've missed you," he murmured, turning his head to face her, cheek resting on the pillow.
It took Hawkeye a second to realize that he wasn't going to attempt to repeat the entire conversation all over again, and another second to process that he had said something remotely sentimental.
And so she skipped her turn and he spoke again.
"I've missed working with you at the desks, having you do all the work. I've missed the way you step into the room and how you go about gracefully doing things, how I could just hear the concentration trickling off your skin," he said, beginning to slur into visualizations from memory. "I've missed your voice, how you try to keep your melodic voice to a straight army-fit shout, and hell, I've even missed the sharp tongue and how you always demand more from me than I do of you."
She said nothing, finding it more suitable to hold the silence in her breathing.
His eyes trailing upwards to the ceiling, eyes looking indefinitely on one of the tiles above, but she could tell he was seeing from what he remembered, the dark pupils of his onyx eyes longing—craving—for light, sick of the eternal night.
"But you know what I miss the most?" he said, the words slipping off his tongue. He let the question linger in the air even though he knew she wasn't going to answer, and continued a moment after, "I miss seeing you—your chocolate caramel eyes and dirty blond bangs, always always tied up behind your head in a tight bun. I've missed the rare smiles and how your eyelashes shade your eyes whenever the smiles are real, and all your faint facial expressions that I could just read your thoughts off the curves of your face."
He poetically stopped a moment. "It's so much more silent now that I can't see you; because what you say out loud is only a fraction of what you express."
He suddenly turned his head towards her again, and her heart stopped when his eyes rested on her directly, targeting precisely where she was.
His hand didn't do as well as his eyes, and unfortunately curved below from her face to meet the thick military fabric over her breasts.
His hand snapped back, but that didn't stop from triggering Hawkeye's anger at the indecency, despite all the innocence that he pled through the blush that rose in his cheeks.
He apologized quickly, but she interrupted him.
"Colonel, I do know that you regained your vision yesterday morning."
His eyes suddenly focused onto hers, and she read a genuine 'oh shit' off them.
"…I thought I told the nurse not to tell you."
Royai: for the man that tries too hard, and the woman who doesn't know why she loves the idiot.
Wow, this actually ended up longer than I expected.
thir13enth