The Best Second Best
A/N: Inspired by Sara Bareilles's "Uncharted"
If there was one thing this student of her father's was teaching Riza, it was that she could get what she wanted in life.
Best to start young, when what she wanted was small and simple enough, if profound in its own way. Still, she hadn't expected her want for companionship to turn into a want for… companionship.
Yes, she, like every other girl she knew, had fancied a boy at some point, but, as horribly, terribly, disgustingly romantic as it sounded, this was different. Roy had, perhaps, made the first overtures at friendship and let Riza respond in her own time, but that took two willing participants, and soon it was hard to tell who was dictating the pace. All that mattered was that, the more they got to know each other, the more convinced Riza was that she wanted to get to know Roy even more. (That was a little embarrassing to think, just from how it sounded, and while she couldn't deny that there was a physical longing, she successfully justified herself in that there was also an emotional longing and an intellectual longing, and the occasional figurative butting of heads only intensified that.)
Unfortunately, she had next to no idea as to how to go about this. She wasn't particularly friendly with any other girls her age, not enough to gossip about this sort of thing, at least, and she knew the romance books she'd occasionally picked up had to be blowing courtship out of proportion if they weren't wrong entirely. Roy's sisters had certainly commented that the pair were "adorable" and had jokingly suggested locking them in a closet when Riza had last visited, but if she had even the tiniest inkling that those novels were wrong, it was a thousand times clearer that Chris's girls' method was no better of an idea. While she could probably write them for help, she didn't trust them to keep this particular secret.
That was a conundrum: she wanted to keep it a secret, but, if she wanted things to change, that would be impossible. (Well, she conceded, novels were right on that point, at least.)
It didn't take her long to realize things were starting to change on their own, or, at least, not entirely of her own will.
She wasn't sure if it was just Roy responding to a change in her behavior, but suddenly, the stares started lasting longer, and any pronounced silence not meant to be thinking time in a conversation went from slightly to incredibly awkward in about 1.6 seconds.
But what told her she really wasn't imagining things was the fact that they would either give each other as wide a berth as possible when moving through the same room, or (though far less often) they'd wind up far closer than was reasonable, and for longer than was reasonable. It was certainly driving her crazy, and, from the reciprocal blush on Roy's face, she didn't think she was far off the mark in guessing that he felt the same way.
One day, something snapped. They were in what honestly was a tighter spot than usual, and she was fairly sure it wasn't entirely by accident on the part of either of them. She wasn't quite sure how it started—who'd grabbed whose elbow to steady themselves first. However, there was no doubt that, when they had finally both regained their footing, after about half a second of surprised, slightly panicked, somewhat adoring staring on both parts, it was Riza who went up just on tiptoe and pressed her lips to Roy's possibly a little harder than she'd intended.
Not at all strangely, neither of them seemed to care, let alone notice. In fact, when Riza started to take a step backward, one of Roy's arms was suddenly around her waist, pulling her closer.
Another thing the novels got right, Riza found, was that she had no idea whatsoever how long all this lasted. And with a sort of odd bubbly, tingly clarity, she knew that not only did she want more, but that there would be more. It was quite possibly the best feeling in the world.
Then again, she thought, as she found it in her protesting calves to once more go up on her toes to claim another kiss, only knowing that there would be more was only the second best feeling in the world.
A/N: Oh, I had massive fun writing this piece. So much. And I have the skype conversation to prove it. Normally, I'm all for this deep, melancholy stuff, and while their relationship is deep in its own way, Riza's human, and, being human, she wants all the benefits of… however you desire to classify their relationship at this point, including the physical ones. And, I'll admit, it's just kind of funny to imagine her stumbling through this as much as I did.
Well, as always, I'd appreciate your thoughts!