A/N: Welcome to my Royai Week! I already have 5 of these stories written, so I should be able to keep up with no issues. I picked the mod-prompts over the fan-prompts because they were less specific, so I felt I was less likely to accidentally copy someone's idea.

I am a sucker for snappy dialogue, so to challenge myself I made the first two chapters almost completely dialogue-free. I wanted to focus on moments instead, and I'm really happy with the result. I am also not in the right head-space to make a good go at an angsty-fic without bumming myself out too much, so most of these are going to be sweet as candy.

I hope you enjoy!

Day 1: Propinquity

Roy is acutely aware of what he has taken from his adjutant.

She has willingly given it, of course. She bared her back to him and gave him the most powerful secret in existence, inked in exquisite detail on her own body, and he excitedly received it. It kick started his career as a State Alchemist, with all of the money and power and responsibility that came with it.

But his duty to his country made him do some unforgivable things, and when he betrayed his own ideals for the military, he had betrayed hers as well. She followed him into the military, moved by his words, which she found out – in the worst possible way – were simply naive, empty promises. He took the softness from her eyes. And with shaking shoulders, she asked him to burn her, and take away the prospect of more people like him. He took that too, and it hurt both of them. She never once called out in pain, and he knew that she stayed as quiet as possible to try to make him feel better, even as he was melting her skin. He took her silence with a mix of gratitude and heartache.

When he called her into his office to ask her to follow him, she saluted him, firm and steady, and told him she'd follow him into hell. Both of them knew in that moment that the words were not starry-eyed. They were prophecy. In asking her to follow him, he took the very prospect of a happy, normal life from her. And she gave it to him. She was willing to give her own life for him.

Roy knows that he loves her, but he can't pinpoint when he fell for her. It seems like something that transcends time. Roy Mustang is in love with Riza Hawkeye; it is not a question of when, it just is. So years ago, when he first felt the itch of acting on his feelings, he remembered everything he had taken from her, and decided that he couldn't follow through with it. He couldn't ask any more of her than she has given him. And besides, he was her superior officer. Frat laws be damned, he still never wanted her to feel like his advances were orders to be followed. He resolved that day to let her decide. In her own time, on her own terms, she would come to him. It gave him the strength to keep going. He would not take from her, she would take from him, and he would willingly give her everything he had to offer. One day.

Roy's a romantic at heart, so when he decided that, he had been filled with a sense of calm, knowing that all he had to do was wait for her.

And in all that calming and knowing, he had somehow forgotten that she was a damn sniper.

Roy's not a naturally patient man. He'll play the long game when he has to, but he's much more adept at chasing after instant gratification. She, on the other hand, is the most patient person he's ever known. She never gets fidgety or restless, she's comfortable with long stretches of silence, and he's pretty sure he's never heard her so much as sigh with boredom.

Havoc tells a story every now and again of her Academy days, when the snipers-to-be were set on a training mission and left to man their stations until they were told they could leave. But the orders never came, which was the point of the whole exercise. The military were testing how long they could last until they gave up. Some of the strongest cadets last over 24 hours before collapsing with exhaustion or just getting up and leaving. She lasted over 72 hours. No food, no water, no sleep, no movement, not even a damn bathroom break. Eventually, her superiors caved before she did, collecting her dehydrated ass from her post because they were afraid she'd do permanent damage to herself.

That's the kind of patience Roy had forgotten he was dealing with.

It's a blessing, usually. She would have to be patient in order to put up with him. But it becomes decidedly less of a blessing when he's waiting for her to make a move and she is taking none of the opportunities presented.

He's tried dropping hints, with enough plausible deniability that it wouldn't be considered coming on to her. But the hints were still strong enough to suggest that if she were to kiss him, he'd be okay with that. In fact, he'd be more than okay. He'd probably even kiss her back. Maybe he'd deepen the kiss, pin her up against the nearest wall and…

Anyway, he has definitely implied that he'd be interested in that.

After exhausting the amount of ways he could suggest that she should make a move, he started orchestrating situations that would be pretty ideal for a kiss. He would reach for a file at the same time as her, letting their hands brush together as they sat alone, in his office on a late night. Or he would walk her home after a night out with the team and stand outside her door, leaning against her doorjamb and waiting for her to find her keys. Or he would find her in the records office and read a file over her shoulder, creating the perfect opportunity for her to just turn around and notice their proximity and God, it would have been perfect.

She let every moment pass. She moved her hand away. She found her keys and went inside alone. She brushed past him without even looking up from her file.

Fate has orchestrated moments too. He can't count how many times they've cheated death. They've been so close – one or the other or sometimes both at once – to dying in the middle of a mission, or a battle, or one time because of an insane driver. They've had each other's limp, weak bodies in their arms, and still nothing has happened between them. Every time he even thinks about the times he almost lost her, he has an overwhelming urge to pull her close and kiss her until his lungs burn with the need for air. He knows why he's holding back, what he can't understand is why is she?

If he were an idiot, he'd assume she simply wasn't interested in him that way. But he's not an idiot, he knows with every fiber of his being that she loves him. And her love for him is so bright and burning that it makes everyone else's love look like mild interest. The only person who could love as deeply as she does is him. They are perfect for each other in literally every way, except they're not even dating, let alone living together or married, like he had envisioned would have happened by now when he first decided to let her make the first move.

Maybe the reason she never wanted to kiss him when they were in danger was because she never wanted their first kiss to be filled with despair. And he can kind of see where she'd be coming from. He doesn't ever want her to think that she is anything less than the woman he's wanted since they were teenagers. He would hate for her to think that the only reason he'd kiss her would be out of desperation.

But they're not desperate now. Neither of them are dying, and she's looking beautiful and she's kind-of-almost touching him and he could not have envisioned a more ideal situation if he tried (and he has tried).

They're going to a ball, to celebrate a new peace treaty between Drachma and Amestris. She came over to his place beforehand, to go over the list of who will be there and who he needs to rub elbows with. He's in a grey suit and she's in an emerald green silk dress that reaches her knees and wraps around her back and hugs her curves just perfectly. When he answered the door, he told her just how beautiful she looked before he could stop himself. She simply nodded and thanked him, returning the compliment with a lot more professionalism than he managed. She followed him into the sitting room and they began their game-plan for the night. When he struggled to put his tie on, she approached him, innocently enough, and helped him out, before fixing his collar over her handiwork. And now here they are.

She's standing before him with her hands under his collar, her fingers brushing against his neck. Her breath catches as she looks up at him. His mouth is hanging open slightly, shocked by her proximity, and it feels like all of the air has been sucked out of the room. She's so close he can feel her breath on his neck, and he's sure she can feel his quickening pulse throbbing beneath her fingers. Her eyes are shining in the warm light of his living room, the light dancing and catching all the different shades of brown and red and yellow and black.

They haven't been this close before without being near death, and he wants to catalogue every feature of her face, but he can't stop looking at her eyes. She's meeting his gaze – she's always been good at reading him, especially by his eyes – and he's trying to use that to his advantage; to think as loudly as possible and burn a message into her brain:

Kiss me. For God's sake you idiot, kiss me!

The silence hangs between them and she hasn't moved yet, and it's taking all of his strength to keep himself from lunging on her. It has to be her decision, it has to be her decision, it has to be her decision, kiss me dammit! With every labored inhale he takes, his chest rises, the movement brushing her forearms against his chest as if his body is trying to feel more of her, of its own volition. Still, he holds himself back. It has to be her decision.

He has no idea how long they stand like this, but when the moment passes, it passes so fast that it makes him dizzy. Suddenly her eyes are downcast, she is two steps away and his tie is perfectly knotted and straight. He looks at the air where she had just been standing, before clearing his throat awkwardly and shifting his attention to her new position. The light still dances in her eyes, but he is more interested in the warm pink tones on her cheeks. Okay great, well at least he's not crazy. She felt it too, otherwise she wouldn't be blushing.

"We're going to be late, sir." There it is, his honorific, the barrier they put between themselves long ago that they can't seem to cross. Well, he could cross it just fine, it's only really her who has the problem with it. The honorifics connect them, but they also seem to wedge a distance between them, one that she would probably label as 'professionalism'. He finds it ridiculous that she could be so concerned with something as trivial as anti-fraternization policies when they have broken much more serious rules together.

He blinks a few times to try waking up from his daze, and slowly the rest of the room comes back into focus. "Can't have that, I suppose. Lead the way, Captain."

As she turns around and walks towards the door, he lets his eyes drift down to follow the sway of her hips. She opens the door and waits for him to exit. He puts his itching hands in his pockets as he walks past her. She follows behind him until they reach the car, and he slides through the passenger door as she takes to the driver's seat.

Roy releases a soft sigh and fishes the invitation from his pocket. In the bottom corner is the date; today's date. October 12th. He's going to give her until after Christmas. If she still hasn't made a move by then, it's his turn. He's given her years, so giving her another few months is more than fair, in his mind. He hopes that she won't need the extra time, that tonight she'll take him home and follow him inside and he can explore what's under that dress she's wearing.

Riza Hawkeye may have the patience of a sniper, but he's almost at his limit.

A/N: Reviews are my lifeblood, and favs/follows are always appreciated. I hope to see you tomorrow! The Prompt for Day 2 is "Vibrancy"