A/N:
shoutout to thecookiemonster77 on tumblr for betaing this fic and catching so many errors in it! (and also gushing w me about these two in the google doc comments—they're so soft and silly.) a million thanks friend!
The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision. —Helen Keller.
Finally, the door shuts with a small click, and the kind nurse leaves Roy to the quiet darkness of the hospital room.
He sits crosslegged on the bed, peering with aching eyes into the nothingness at what he knows is a plain, white wall on the other side of the room, and imagines for a ludicrous moment that the intensity of his gaze, if he could stare and will it hard enough, might pierce through the curtain of darkness. And everything would be fixed.
But the Truth isn't that simple, and he scoffs at himself. You fool.
Roy closes his useless, godforsaken eyes, pressing his fingers into them with a grimace, and pulls his attention away from them to the rest of his senses, his remaining tethers to the world around him. He needs to be reminded that he isn't simply floating, alone, in an empty void of blackness. And as he focuses, he can hear people bustle outside his door, solid businesslike footsteps and shuffles, the occasional squeak of a wheelchair passing by from room to room and muffled murmurs leaking through the cracks. He realizes, as he finally registers the complaints of his wounded palms, that his hands have been clenched for some time, stiff fingers digging into the cool sheets of his bed, and with a long exhale, he relaxes them and winces at the pain until it dulls again to a mere ache. He carefully places one on the inside of his elbow, where a fresh bandage holds a dressing firmly in place over the small wound where a PVC used to be. (Roy presses the butt of his palm against it and grimaces; he always seems to bruise after getting his blood drawn.) And surrounding him, filling his nose is the familiar stench of hospital convalescence: arid and sterile, the faint taint of bleach sticking like a film over every surface.
The smell nauseates him. Hospitals, like the battlefield, lost their idealistic charm for him a long time ago.
Nearby lies Lieutenant Hawkeye, her breathing irregular in her sleep but strong. Roy can't see it, but he knows an IV line is hooked up to the back of her hand, steadily feeding her veins a drip of blood.
She fell asleep while the line was being put in, which he's relieved about to an embarrassing degree. A severed jugular vein is serious business, and even in his blindness he can still see the dark lake of her blood beneath her, growing vividly by the second as she demanded him, the light fading from her eyes, to let her die.
They're ridiculously lucky that the good doctor didn't go for her carotid artery instead. Mei's alkahestry, as capable medical aid as it is, does little in the way of lost blood. And then for the lieutenant to stand back up in spite of that, and keep fighting by his side—
Roy's relieved. He's relieved, and grateful, and glad, because she horribly needs the rest.
And maybe, he considers wryly as he rubs his temple and grimaces, he does as well. God knows how the lieutenant would scowl if he stays awake brooding for any longer. His head is beginning to throb, joining the aches of his eyes and bandaged hands.
Roy then smiles self-deprecatingly—his issues have nothing on near-death by exsanguination, all things considered. He massages his eyes before lying down and, turning his eyes up to what he presumes is the ceiling, listens to his lieutenant, alive, breathe softly for a time. At some point, he slips finally into a restless doze, confusing, nebulous dreams darting about the edges of his awareness like bolts of flame alchemy, taunting him. Roy reaches for them, grasping at the tendrils like straws until they transform into pyres of firewood. Sparks drift into the dark sky.
"Roy," teenage Riza says quietly from behind the small campfire. She's swaddled in a blanket and warming her hands up near the flames, gazing into them with thoughtful, innocent eyes. Not those of a killer's. "Why do you like alchemy?"
Roy spears a marshmallow and thrusts it into the fire. He passes one already done a golden brown over to Riza. "What do you mean?"
She looks at him, bereft and dressed in mourning black, from the other side of her father's grave. Her eyes are heavy with the faded scars of grief. "Because it destroyed my family."
A wind buffets the sticks of marshmallows in his hands until they're yanked away, flying up over the graveyard and into the clear blue sky. Roy watches them disappear with an oddly detached, nostalgic sorrow, and when he turns back around, the two of them stand in their dress blues and beige overcoats, surrounded by the sandy outskirts of the Eastern Desert, and Riza stares with horror at all of Ishval burning before them.
She turns to him, eyes accusatory—and betrayed. "I trusted you."
Roy flinches from that uncompromising blame, from the guilt, unable to meet her glare, and when he looks away he's at one of the military camps in Ishval, awaiting the trucks that will finally send them home. He gazes up at the Führer of Amestris, who stands with his hands on a sword hilt, draconian and victorious, atop a mass of corpses both foreign and native-born.
"You have to fix this, Roy," Hughes says from beside him, where Roy can't see, "so that this never happens again, and make amends for all of us. And for god's sake, man, get yourself a wife! You need all the support you can get now that I can't be your best man anymore."
Roy scowls bitterly; even in death, Hughes just has to bug him like this. But when he turns to give Hughes an irritated retort, he's met instead with an expanse of white and a Gate that looms ominously before him. From behind, where he can't see, the Truth speaks.
"A hopeful vision for the future, surrounded by the answer; you neither need nor desire this knowledge." A giant eye blinks open at him from within his Gate, and an ancient, instinctual terror wells up within him—his soul recoils from that darkness, as it had then, and Roy is suddenly a bug pinned underneath that solitary alien gaze. An insignificant insect met with the undivided attention of God, the universe, All, and One.
And himself.
"Yet here you are, Roy Mustang, paying the price for a choice made for you," the Truth muses.
Tendrils reach out to grasp him, the blue of alchemy instead of ink-black, and God grins at Roy as he's pulled away into the depths of his Gate, the hell of Edward's nightmares and now part of his own.
"The one punishment you never meant to receive. Ironic, isn't it?"
Roy's eyes snap open to darkness. For a moment, half-delirious, he can see the knowledge of the universe in the empty expanse of his sight as he had before, streaming past in bright, overwhelming cacophony—and then the moment ends, Roy closes his burning, blind eyes again with a grimace, and he groans softly as he realizes just how exhausted he is now. The nap was a mistake.
Riza's voice rises warily out of the silence. "Sir?"
Her bare back is to him. Somehow, she kneels on the tent floor with strength, shoulders firm and taut with anticipation but not fear, and Roy, gut twisting, doesn't understand that trust he sees in every line of her back (because didn't he break it, again and again with every snap of his fingers in this horrible desert) as he stares grimly, distantly at the tattooed alchemical sigils, running the most careful of calculations through his mind, before the circle on his glove begins to glow blue and he snaps—
"Are you awake? Colonel?"
"Yeah," he murmurs, still grimacing, shaking his head loose of the fading muddle and rubbing an eye with one clammy, aching hand. Sweat beads on his brow despite the chilliness of his sheets, and Roy sluggishly considers whether he's coming down with something. "I'm awake. How are you feeling, Lieutenant?"
"Like I belong in a hospital, sir," she replies wryly.
"Hah."
Roy can almost feel the lieutenant's eyes on him as he sits up, bed creaking, and pauses in the middle of a brief dizzy spell. The stab wounds in his palms throb to the beat of his heart.
"Are you all right, Colonel?"
"Just tired. Nothing a good night's sleep won't cure."
There's a pregnant pause, and a bed nearby—the lieutenant's—creaks. She's moved, no doubt with suspicion. Why does she have to be so good at spotting his lies? "Colonel, it's nighttime. You've been asleep for at least seven hours." Her tone implies that he hasn't exactly been resting peacefully either.
Seven hours?
Afterimages of his dreams flicker in the darkness.
"Are you sure you're all right?"
"Yes, I'm fine. It's not like I can tell what time it is with these eyes, Hawkeye," he snaps, jabbing thumbs towards the aforementioned organs and instantly regretting it as pain lances through his palms. Roy can't help but hiss and cradle his hands to his chest.
"Sir!"
"I'm. Fine," he grits out, wounded hands still agonizing as he drops them again into his lap.
"Sir," and this time her voice is stern. "You've been shaking."
Roy's hands tremble rebelliously, as if to corroborate the lieutenant's words. He would look at them to verify for himself, if he could see—though he suspects she's right. He's freezing, and just like that, the unbidden ire drains away to leave him in a tired slump. "I said... I'm just exhausted, Lieutenant. Worry about yourself. You're the one who almost died earlier today."
To his chagrin, Roy's voice softens with far too much emotion than her CO's voice ought to, and he turns his face away from her. He's such a fool, such a fool.
She sighs, and the exasperated fondness in it might as well drive a knife through his heart. "You're such a hypocrite, Colonel."
Her bed creaks again, an IV stand rolls quietly across the floor, and then she's beside him pulling up a chair. The legs rasp noisily against the linoleum.
His eyes widen, even if he can't see. "Lieutenant. Your neck, you should be resting—"
"Princess Chang did a fantastic job with my injuries, sir. I might not even need surgery if the exam tomorrow morning turns out well. So with all due respect, stop being ridiculous and shut up," she says briskly. Shocked into submission, Roy does so, and sensing his bafflement, she adds with dry humor, "Well you're blind now, aren't you? What I said with a glare I'll simply have to say out loud now."
Roy snorts as she covers his shoulders with his overcoat, and when she takes his hands, he grips them back as tightly as he can, cautious of her PVC and IV.
"I suppose I forgot you almost lost me too," he murmurs.
His lieutenant laces the fingers of one warm hand through one of his. "Yes, you did."
A small smile makes its way onto Roy's face; he can't help it. The last time she displayed this much affection outright... well, she thought he'd died. He has the impulsive urge to reach out and lay a hand on his lieutenant's neck, over the bandages he knows are there—a tangible reminder that she's okay, that the pulse of her heart still beats on—but the sheer unprofessionalism of the idea keeps Roy's hands still within hers. Touching her like that... Besides, between his blindness and his luck, he'd smack her in the face instead.
His smile widens, even if it is with a drier edge to it. "How about this, then. I'll try to stop mother-henning people if you promise never to get your neck cut open again."
"Deal. Although I expect your end of this promise to be much harder to hold up."
"I said 'try', I didn't say promise."
Roy doesn't need to have it said aloud to know the look the lieutenant is giving him now, and he snickers until the return of his shivering sobers him again. For a moment there, he forgot about his condition. "I... might be sick," he finally admits.
"Don't worry, Colonel. We all figured you weren't quite right in the head a long time ago."
Roy turns a blind glower towards her—he tries to be serious for once and she continues to sass him—albeit one with no real fire to it. In all honesty, she's not entirely wrong; no one whose end goal happily risks their head in a noose could be completely normal. "Then what are you for following me, Lieutenant?"
"I'm merely a bodyguard."
"Hardly."
She rests her shoulder against his, lending him warmth, continuing as if he didn't speak. "You're the silly, egotistical, quixotic man who thinks he can get away with protecting everyone."
Roy finds himself smiling tenderly, closing his eyes and leaning back into her, and after the briefest flicker of fear, aggressively decides not to care, not to reassert their usual boundaries of aloof, arrogant superior and strict, stoic subordinate; it's not as if the lieutenant is concerned. Hell, as if they didn't already cross the line—as if their hand holding alone wouldn't be damning enough for anyone who happens to waltz into their hospital room. But no one else is in their room, no one else will be coming to their room, no homunculi are keeping constant tabs on the two of them any longer, and Roy Mustang desperately needs to humor himself because this is the first time he's been alone with Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, his best friend and love and moral guidance in the flesh since her near-death less than twenty-four hours ago.
God, where would he be without her? Dead myself, a thousand times over, in a thousand different ways. Not for the first time, Roy is reminded of how much he doesn't deserve her. He raises the back of her hand to his lips slowly and kisses it. She allows him to. "You flatter me, Lieutenant."
"Oh, Colonel," she says dryly, softly.
They sit in companionable, affectionate silence for a while, hands clasped and leaning against one another, and Roy vainly wishes that he could see her. She's right beside him, and he misses her.
"Worry about yourself, sir," she finally says, "please. You're ill. Get some rest."
"I'll try."
The lieutenant moves away, taking her hands and warmth with her, and the sudden absence of them strikes Roy with almost real pain as he listens to her IV stand roll back into place beside her bed. He turns his eyes towards her, remembering the image of blood pooling beneath her body, of her back scorched by his flames, searching for the strength in her face and frustrated by darkness instead.
"Lieutenant," he says. "I'm sorry."
There's a moment of still silence before she lets out a brief breath, like a small, bemused shake of the head, and she knows he's talking about more than his chronic inability to worry about himself. Her bed creaks as she climbs back into it. "It's all right, Colonel. The fact that you can still say sorry and be sincere is enough."
The weight of his sins has never felt more palpable. "Really?"
"You have a good heart," the lieutenant states simply, as she has before. "And you're trying to right our wrongs."
"They can never be repaired," he murmurs, and he knows she nods.
"But you're trying. And if you can, you will make our hopes reality, which is much more than anyone else in this military can say for themselves. I know I'm praising you for something you don't want to be praised for, but it's the truth. Perhaps you're blind now, Colonel, but you still have vision."
Roy blinks rapidly a few times, and he has to stop himself from balling his hands into the sheets of his bed before he aggravates the wounds yet again. "Oh, stop," he finally croaks, voice wavering. "You'll make me blush."
He can almost feel one of the lieutenant's smiles on him, soft and warm. "Of course, sir. Now, go to sleep."
Roy manages a mock-salute. "Yes, ma'am."
Somehow, his attempt to lighten the mood succeeds, and the lieutenant chuckles as she settles down. The sound buoys Roy—he's had so little occasion to hear it in the past year—as he puts his coat aside and lies down himself.
"Lieutenant?"
"Hm?"
"Thank you."
"You're welcome, sir."
And this time, Roy's dreams are kind enough to send him back to the campfire days of fifteen years ago and stay there for a while.