If You Could See Me Now
Pairing : Roy Mustang x Riza Hawkeye (Full Metal Alchemist)
Rating : M (for sexual situations)
Summary : When it is dark and there is no one but him, Riza shows him that there is sight even in his fingertips, in touches and caresses that speak of love and emotion that they have denied themselves in all these years. Post-manga.
A/N : So this was basically a result of rewatching the anime and thinking that Roy needs a little bit of loving after everything he's gone through.
He shifts onto his side smoothly, slipping out of the bed in a practiced motion. Her eyes crack open a little at the creaking noises the bed makes. There had been silence, stretching and comfortable, knowledge that they were together and that a dangerous time had passed, so they lay in bed, separately, recovering with their own thoughts.
She watches his movements, somewhat graceful from all the years of carefulness, using his hand on the wall to guide his way.
The click of the bathroom light is loud and audible amidst the pin drop silence, something he doesn't need but he does it anyway, a force of habit.
He doesn't crib, or act different, or pity himself and Riza thinks he's trying too hard because he is only human after all. Sympathy can be healing sometimes, but Roy doesn't ask for it, so she doesn't give it. She wonders if it is his ego at play, because that, she knows fully well, is one of his most shining attributes.
But it is an ego she will secretly coddle, agreeing with every shred of his self-importance underneath her impassivity because to her, even though she will never admit it, he is everything.
"Shit," he curses as she hears a loud metallic clink, and the sound of him grappling with his sheets. He manages to sit back on the bed and nurses his toe, the nail having broken and cut into his skin. "I guess I still haven't gotten used to this room."
He says this sheepishly, with a glance in her direction, because he knows that even though she says nothing her eyes are on him, concerned maybe, waiting to see if he needs her.
But how is he to say that he always does, that it is her presence that he needs most, indispensable and unmistakable, the only thing he is sure of in his darkness.
"Crying over your toe, Colonel?" She mock chastises, getting up gingerly, careful with her own wounds to see if she can clean up the blood on his toe. It isn't much, just some swabbing and a bandage and she is almost as efficient with medicine as she is with a sniper. "You're such a kid sometimes."
"Well it's better to cry over the small things," he says quietly, and for the first time she detects a tinge of bitterness in his tone. He looks up at her, but he isn't really looking, just angling himself in her direction, his dark, fine eyes now miasmic, blocking her from him.
Emotion is something Riza Hawkeye had learnt to distance many, many years ago, especially after the countless gallons of blood she spilled and sniped. But now something wells up in her, torrid and hurtful, at the sight of the cruelty to which he was subjected.
There are so many things that she never said, that she couldn't have said, but she feels guilty now because she never got to tell him that his eyes were actually the most mesmerising shade of night.
But she can't tell him now, not when he is wounded both inside and out, devoid of the light she so desperately wants to show him.
So she does something unprofessional and extremely uncharacteristic of her. She slips back the covers of the small hospital bed and slides in, without warning.
"Lieutenant?"
She hushes him before he can say anything else because it is awkward enough, this position, her on her side next to him, curving herself so as to not smother him.
There's a little mole on his chest peeking out of his shirt and her breathing gets funny when she remembers a time, many, many years ago when she spotted him dressing, broad shoulders and wet hair and the very same mole she had thought she wanted to kiss.
"You're shaking," she observes, small tiny vibrations of his hand and she wants to laugh. "Since when have you been so afraid of women, Colonel?"
He smiles even though he's been caught but he can't help it. "Since the Hawkeye slipped into bed next to me," he says sardonically. "Have I committed some infraction worth punishing?" because even though they have spent a vast proportion of their lives together, this was territory never ventured.
Her head fits perfectly in the crook of his neck, just as she has suspected and maybe even dreamed of for so many years, his stubble is the right amount of pokey, and even the smell of medicine smells different off of him.
"Do you think," he swallows, because he can't count how many times he's dreamed of this warmth, of her pressing against him, sweet breath and soft skin, mingling with his own, "that maybe he would let me cheat?"
"Cheat?"
"Just a little. For a few minutes. Or seconds. Anything." It would not suffice, but it would have to do. He would trade anything for just one moment with her, to look at her and ask her without words, if she would never rid them of this nearness.
"Sir?"
He laughs, almost. His request was a ridiculous one. "If I could ask that Truth guy," he whispers, "or God, or whatever you want to call him… If I could ask him to give me my vision back just for a little while..."
He trails off, and he wonders if he sounds like a madman. It wouldn't be far wrong, what with the desire that racks his body, the crazed need to see her, and ask her if she knew the effect her closeness has on him.
She's heard Roy being lazy, whining about his paperwork, ambitious, dreaming his way to the top, bloodthirsty and ruthless, she's even heard him flirting with other women, his voice low, teasing, telling them they're pretty.
But she has never heard this, this maddening edge in his voice that betrays his desperation.
"I just want to see you," he whispers, and she doesn't understand it, why she feels like she will move Heaven and Earth to make him stop feeling this despair.
Her hand snakes out to cup his cheek despite herself, her forehead moving to rest against his.
It was meant to be a comforting gesture, to relieve this despair that he won't fully share but it isn't. It is electric, tingling, a wanting flame that is burning brightly within her own body.
"Why?" She asks this with a tremble of her lips, like she fears the answer, just like she fears she will move closer and jeopardise everything that their relationship has ever stood for.
"There is nothing special here. Nothing you haven't seen before."
He could tell her what he really thinks, that special is a word undeserving of describing her, that she is something far more precious. He could tell her that he could spend his entire life gazing upon her face and it wouldn't be enough.
Words were easy for him, especially when it came to a woman, and he could go to great lengths to describe how dazzlingly unordinary she was.
He could tell her that for the longest time, he hasn't thought of her as just Lieutenant or Hawkeye or even Riza, but his Riza and maybe then she would understand.
But he can't say it, because this is his Riza after all and she has always read in between the lines faster than he writes them.
So it's nothing more than a choked whisper when he says, "It's not enough."
He can feel wetness against his cheek and he doesn't know if it's hers or his own or both, mingling together in a way he wants more than just tears to mingle.
"Colonel," she whispers, but she can't form the words, his nearness, his words are stealing hers, choking her with emotion she has ignored from time immemorial.
His hands reach for her face, shaking, because they've never done this before, he's never touched her the way he really wants to, he's never drunk in the contours of her face through his fingers, skimming across her eyelids, shaping her lips.
When he touches them they are wet, and he doesn't know if it's because of her tears or her tongue, licking across her lips, her mouth parted with heavy breaths, his fingers sending tremors of thrill down her body.
"Do you like this, Lieutenant?" His voice is soft, awed, something it's never been before in the presence of a woman. He's never had to ask a lady if she's having a good time, he would know it. He would see the effect he has on her and revel in it.
But now he has nothing, only touch and it's telling him that her skin is heating up and her lips are parted in sweet wonder.
He is left with only his hearing, taking in sounds of the softest gasps when his hands feather down her body, the arch of her neck, still covered in bandages, the swell of breasts he had only allowed himself to dream of in the most punishing of fantasies.
Soon enough he can feel vision in his hands, in his fingertips against her flesh, transformed by her responsiveness, by the way she bows underneath his bearing.
"Is this really okay?" He asks, because his probing has turned impolite, wandering into depths of her, hot and flaming and wet.
"I can assure you, you aren't doing anything I don't want you to do." She manages as best she can, to sound still professional under his teasing hands, slipping perfectly inside and then out, playing a godly rhythm.
"Are you saying," he pauses, not wanting to interrupt the wrangled moan from her mouth, "that this was what you had in mind, when you slipped into my bed?"
He can feel her lips curve into a smile under his own. "You're breaking the rules here, Lieutenant." Twisting his fingers into her hair, roughened by the temperament of war, he yanks on her locks so that she turns up to face him.
He can't see her eyes, but he could imagine them. They would be dark and wide and surprised with his roughness and he's certain he isn't far wrong when he feels her eyelids flutter against his cheek.
"They say we learn best from our superiors," she whispers, her words kissing him softly. Because if there was anything she had learnt under Roy's command it was that the rules can be bent and twisted, and given new life on your own terms.
And these terms were hers.
She had stayed away long enough from the man whom she had sold her heart to, the man who watched her when he flirted with others, who called her Elizabeth in the most ridiculous manner, the man who had saved her, at one time even from herself.
The rules could fuck themselves, she thinks, language that Roy would not be proud of.
"Take that back," he murmurs, now finding his way on top of her, awkward at first, but she pools into the mattress under him, shifting till he is comfortable and in control, the way she likes him best. "I always follow the rules."
"And whose rules are these," she gasps in between the simultaneous plunge of his tongue in her mouth and him between her legs, as she winds her legs around him, wrenching a groan from him, a pleading devotion.
She takes his hands from her breasts, not because she doesn't like his torment - quite the contrary in fact - but because she wants him to see how much she loves him, that this isn't some broken compensation for their losses, or a war torn desperation, but because she has loved him ever since he burnt her room door down as her father's apprentice, all those years ago.
Because even when her hair was still short and girly and her body had yet to fill in all these places he delighted in so much, when he was young and prone to temptation, she had always loved him.
She places his fingers on her face, close to her lips and he traces them, soft and wet and full, because this time, the first time when she tells him she loves him, she wants him to feel it and see it, and brand her whispers into his heart.
But he doesn't let her, just like he's never let her stray too far alone, never let her face danger by herself, just like in all these years when she was supposed to be protecting him, he was always two steps ahead, looking behind to make sure she follows.
"I love you," he confesses, choked, and she almost feels angry that he's always like this, rushing in, never letting her test the waters herself. But she can't be angry, not when his voice is so honest, so raw, it makes her shiver.
So she kisses him hungrily, a little messy, joy bursting through her heart in little shots of flames that she can feel burning through her skin.
"I know, Sir."
A/N : I you're reading please be sure to let me know if you like it or how I can improve. :)