Just a little something for y'all.
Riza Hawkeye held her guns like she held her loyalty, unwavering and unblinking. Strangers mistook her heart for ice and her walk as robotic, as if she had been born unto the world as a soldier. To so many, she was the perfect machine—a stone-cold sniper who shot with precision on command. Every step she took radiated deadly, but she was nothing short of amazing.
And Roy Mustang knew.
She had walls, sure—walls built from years of hurt and guilt. Her life had never been easy, and from a young age, she had learned to hold her breath and pick her battles. When they first met, she was so reserved, so hesitant with every interaction, but he found her so interesting that he fought like hell for every quirk and secret.
Yet, inside those bastions was life. Every bullet fired from her gun was a measure of her convictions, because Riza Hawkeye saw a better world and she vowed to go through hell and back to make it so. Every move on the battlefield set her mind ablaze, because she had things and people she had to protect. Every command she took without hesitation was founded in her trust in him, so that he might make their better world a reality.
Strangers never saw the way she hid her smiles when the rest of the command was goofing off, because she knew she was the only one who could rein them back into their paperwork. Occasionally, she threw in a deadpanned remark, just to humor them, which only made things worse. But, on those days, she never minded.
Strangers never saw the nights when she agreed to go out with the team for drinks. There was always a certain amount of relief that entered her eyes when she left the command, and even though she was constantly alert, every day sent home was another day still alive. She'd allow one of the boys to buy her drinks, just because they offered. Every once in a while, she'd even let out a laugh, which was always guaranteed to be genuine, because Riza Hawkeye never showed emotions lightly.
Strangers never saw the way she worried about the Elric brothers. When they left command on a risky mission, she'd always drum her fingers on the edge of her desk, over and over again to the rhythm of her fear. She understood their path to atonement, but in the back of her mind she could never forget that they were just children. There were even nights, after she'd fought alongside them, that she'd be rendered sleepless. She passed her time instead by clinking her nails on a glass of gin, because in some ways, she understood and identified with them in a way no one else could.
Strangers never saw the way she kissed Roy in candlelight. Sometimes, she moved slowly, and in other times, she crashed down on him like a wave in a storm. Her fingers left memories as they moved across his skin, and at the same time, they made him forget. There was something captivating about the way she breathed, the way she smiled, the way she moved.
Strangers never saw, but Roy Mustang did.
And he was in love with her, a fact he decided long ago, and reminded himself of every day. Despite all her sins (and God knows, he had a sea of his own), he was in love with every maddening part of his beautiful lieutenant. Somehow, she managed to love him, too. And whenever she would mutter those three words to him, in dark hours when no one else could hear, he believed in God. No matter how they broke or where their pieces fell, they were always back-to-back, helping the other stand.
There was an odd sense of irony in finding strength in a broken woman.
There was also an odd sense of irony in that the woman who saved him so many times would be the cause of his death.
Widened in absolute horror, his eyes watched as she fell to the ground like a vase off a table, shattering into blood instead of glass. There was a huge gash in her throat where a sword had been only moments before, and he knew she only had minutes left, if that. His beautiful Riza Hawkeye was about to die, all because they needed him to perform a human transmutation.
And he was going to do it, too, give up his life in exchange for hers, because imagining a world without Riza Hawkeye was like imagining a world without rain, where his fire would destroy endlessly and the flowers would never grow.
She must have known, too (but then again, when didn't she know?), because she looked at him sharply, conveying a message in the language only they understood.
"Mustang, don't you dare," her eyes said, and it stung more than the lick of flames ever could. "So help me, I will shoot you. There's an entire country that needs you much more than it needs my life, so don't you dare get yourself killed. I am not afraid."
His enemies looked at him expectantly, but he clenched his fists in refusal. He felt helpless as he watched her breath begin to hitch, and he wanted to do nothing but slam his palms into the circle beneath him and cry a broken hallelujah into the Heavens in hope that some God may heal her. However, she expected him to be strong. Even as the hope faded from her face, her eyes never left his.
Because Riza Hawkeye loved like she died, unwavering and unblinking, and she was nothing short of amazing.
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