Warmth.

He leans over her shoulder to run his eyes over the paperwork she's working on, and for a moment - just a moment - she closes her eyes and breathes in. "You work too hard." he announces, a disapproving frown gracing his lips. Despite her heart that was probably beating faster than a rabbit's, her voice is calm, she's become quite good at it, over the years, to control her voice, "Well, someone has to work around here."

He leans back, but his scent still lingers for just a second, and she breathes in the last of it. A warm, Roy-ish smell. Again, her heart rate picks up. "Hmph." he mutters, and her heart trembles. "We could get Fuery, or Havoc, to do the work." She closes her eyes again, knowing he can't see her face, as he is looking at the back of her head. Her head spins, at his simple usage of we, praying against all logic of what it could imply.

"Then nothing would ever get done, or, perhaps, it would, but it'd all be wrong."

He pulls up a chair, propping his legs up on her desk, simply sitting beside her, "You allow them such little credit."

"I allow them what is deserved of them."

Once again, his scent drifts over to her, and she breathes in deeply, not knowing particularly why his scent is so appealing to her. His warm, indefinable scent that she can never quite find words for. She breathes, and breathes, breathing in his scent that she's memorized so well by now, yet, when he is not around can never recall in her mind. "Still, you could be like them, you know. Do only, or perhaps, less, of what is expected of you, instead of taking on everyone else's responsibilities."

His words sneak into her ears, and she wishes it were always like this; after working hours, their pointless discussion on her obsessive work habits, occasionally lack of his, anything, really, that they could use as an excuse. Maybe it means nothing to him, for it could just be amusement for him, and if it is, she does not want to know.

"I could not be that way."

His eyes drift over to meet her quiet gaze, and she likes to fantasize that there is something quietly pleading in those orbs of his, eyes that are the brightest of all the colours that she's ever seen, something that only she can help him with. He turns his eyes down to the floor.

"No.. I suppose you could not."

She swivels her chair to face him, and he meets her gaze, again. She can read him like a book, most of the time, but there are parts of him hidden to, even, her. He stands up slowly, and his scent crashes over her, taking away her breath, and making her quietly hyperventilate, sucking in as much of it as she can.

"Well. I'll take my leave now, Hawkeye." Hand resting on the headrest of her chair, he leans over her, reaching for his alchemic gloves, and she thanks God he'd put them there earlier. He leans close - too close - to her. And her nose is a mere centimetre from his shoulder as he reaches for them, the closest thing to a hug that he's ever given her since the careless nights in Ishbal when he would hold her. Warmth rushes through her body and she takes extra care to breathe quietly, for she knows she would be gasping, and reaching for him. And, of course, she knows better.

She breathes in one last time as he draws away, and once again, his scent, his wonderfully addictive scent, washes over her. And not to her surprise, words are taken from her mind as she cannot find any such word to describe it, the closest thing she can come up with; warm.

"Goodnight, Colonel."

"Goodnight, Lieutenant."

Their parting is simple, and professional, as if he had not once held her during the long and cold hours of the night during times of war, as if she had not rested her head against his chest, breathing in his warm scent, her only reassurance and reminder that she was still human.

She watches as he leaves quickly and silently, for she knows - and perhaps he does too - that if he were any slower, she would rush after him, ask him to hold her again, breathe in his scent, which, at some point became her air.

And of course, they know better.

But it doesn't stop her from noticing his jacket lying audaciously on her desk, and lifting it quietly, letting his scent wash over her as she holds it to her, thinking of nights when she would breathe his scent endlessly, and hating, hating, just how much she's become to need him.