Ch.7 The Call
"HUGHES!" Havoc shouted running to his commanding officer who watched the other soldiers get Intel from the dead body under the burning sun.
"Who is that?" He kept a concentrated look on their fallen comrade lying on the gravel.
"A Private named Rodger." Havoc dryly replied.
"Don't give me one cryptic sentence." Hughes exclaimed, irritated at his friend's phrasing.
BAM!
His commanding officer slammed a rolled up folder onto his head. He immediately grabbed his head and cried out in pain. "HUGHES!"
"What is it my one and only chain smoker?" Havoc grew agitated by his change in moods. He quickly fixed his posture and snatched the folder from his hand slapping it to his face.
Hughes remained in the same position with a dry expression plastered on his bearded face. "How the hell did I get stuck with someone like you?" He muttered under his breath. Havoc crossed his arms in conviction at winning a stupid game and gave a proud smile.
"You like me too much to get rid of me."
"Do you have a comment for everything?" He snatched from his hand, again, holding onto it tightly when Havoc took a quick step forward.
"Only the ones that require a comment." Hughes slapped the folder he held on his face, hiding the consumed energy this man had beside him taking it out on him.
"BRIGADIER GENERAL!" Another soldier ran to him with a look that held information than the rest of the Intel group.
"What is it?"
"There appears another person involved with Riza Hawkeye." They were one step ahead of this soldier since they already know that.
"Is there any place in this location that has reception?" Hughes started to dig around in his pocket while Havoc and the other soldier pointed to the dead body.
A cold shiver slid down his back. He turned his head half way over his shoulder and weakly pointed to the dead man. "This is a joke, right?"
"Does it look like I'm joking?" Havoc said a blank look on his face. Hughes searched his eyes for any amusement, finding none.
He started to slowly walk his way to the dead corpse lying under the blazing sun. He stared, mortified as it as a shudder traveled down his spin. He held the phone to his hear waiting for that man to pick up. "This is idiot better not be involved in this case." He grumbled aloud.
Buzz.
Buzz.
Buzz.
Roy stared at the ceiling above and groaned, tiredly when the phone on the nightstand began to buzz. "What is it?" He answered, angered by the time this person called.
"HEY, ROY!" Hughes exclaimed in the background.
"What the hell are you doing calling me at six in the morning?" Roy growled, tiredly.
"It's your best buddy calling you at this time." The cryptic way he replied sent Mustang on high alert.
"Don't aggravate me more than I already am and tell me what happened?" Roy demanded, violently in a low whisper.
"Please tell me you're not involved with a fugitive named Riza Hawkeye?" He pleaded when the only answer he wanted to from his friend was a simple "no."
" . . . Hughes, she's a lost, broken-lost-mess who needs help." Roy slowly said as the frustration began to slip away when he took one glance at the sleeping woman beside him.
"YOU FREAKING IDIOT!" He immediately pulled the phone away from his ear when Hughes screamed incredulous about his recklessness. "YOU ARE A COMPLETE IDIOT!" He proclaimed in a heated shout receiving wary looks from the soldiers.
"All right, All right, I get. I'm an idiot." He groaned annoyed with every word he spoke and realized he agreed with Hughes. "Now will you listen to me?" He declared in finality.
"No, I can't." He states in a simple manor. "You need to listen to me. I'm here where you and your freaky little fugitive-girlfriend left a dead private in the middle of the desert. Care to explain?" He tapped his foot, impatiently waiting for an answer on the other side of the line.
"It doesn't matter how I'm involved, you moron. I just need your help." Roy pleaded in an exasperated tone that made Hughes internally sigh.
"You're one lucky son of a bitch." Mustang lightly chuckled in the background.
"Yeah, I know."
"And Roy?" Hughes called to him, once again with slight humor entering his voice and mentally pictured him with an evil smirk plastered.
"What is it?" He asked in calm demeanor to keep himself from yelling at his friend knowing the sarcasm that's going to happen.
"YOU NEED TO GIVE ME SOME GRANDCHILDREN!" The excitement he let out made him cringe and want to go crawl in a dark corner.
Click.
He slammed the phone shut, irritated by his lack of control. He sighed and let his body free fall back in the bed burning a hole in the ceiling as he tried to get more rest.
"A buddy who calls at six in the morning . . ." He whispers into the silence closing his eyes, once more. "What kind of friend does that?"
The darkness that takes his sight leads to memories he's started to treasure when he met Hawkeye, no matter how long it's been or what her past is and whatever she's still going through, but when he first ran into her he knew right away what she was. He didn't really need the answers, he just knew and he just wanted to make sure. She's always had her finger on the trigger with just one bullet in the gun as she took the life of one person she's hated.
Every time he's repeated those words he questioned himself as an Amestrian and a soldier who was incessant to belong in the military, but those questions mostly remained to Hawkeye and it replayed over and over again in his head knowing he can't win them over.
Is she worthless . . .?
Will I truly help her . . .?
Is she too far gone from the remedy . . .? He thought.
Hawkeye battles a strong in the depths of her cold life that runs through her veins. It's a war she can't win by herself, having no one to listen to her painful calls and drowns herself in her own lies to make her feel something more than just a memory. It's the good that barely keeps them alive and they're enclosed in with the sin standing in between them.
To trust Roy Mustang was to trust something she's never felt before. It became harder to trust the people around her because they keep her in the lies and she knows deep down in her insane thoughts Mustang can help her see the light of one more day and if she reaches out they don't know of she'll be able to fully trust him.
She wants someone to tell her she's still breathing the life she was given because somehow Mustang has been able to bring her back to life fixing millions of her shattered frame. It was an over flowing ocean brewing inside her and if she flows down the wrong path the tide he's created will bring her back to him, but it's the battle within, with both sides standing strong and to them it's beautiful when it falls apart.
To them, it's the wars they wage thinking they're comfortably miserable. Mustang can set a spark lighting the darkest part inside Hawkeye's heart, thinking they're also invincible and their worlds on fire, permanent scars that are left and can never be fully healed. Those scars they have are just a past memory to them that keep them imperfect because that's how their world works.
They both have bottled up a dangerous storm flowing within them as they try to disarm each other to have something more than helping the other out, but the lack of trust Hawkeye has is something Mustang is worried about and if she can't trust him then he'll make her since he mentally promised to as well as to sew her back in one piece.
Hawkeye had been ruined by her father and the world. All she wants is for someone to find her the lost sea of painful memories. The people who are forcing themselves into her annoy her to where she wants to push them away while they keep coming back for more. To her, it's something completely breakable. It's one of the reasons why she doesn't want anyone involved, let alone Mustang who insists on doing what he says. He'll never learn
They're surrounded by things they can't control and it grows colder each day and night. Though one has lost their way while the other tries to help without hum doing something reckless that might break their little trust she barely put in him. Mustang won't give up until she pleads for the trust he's going to try and give . . .
BOOM!
"HAWKEYE!" Mustang quickly bolted out of bed, running towards the kitchen with a worried expression taking place. It slowly started to calm down when he noticed her covered in white powder.
She turned around with a piercing glare as he laughed, hysterically at her new appearance. "Stop laughing or I'll shoot a bullet in between your eyes." She growled, darkly.
"What . . . happened?" He asked trying to catch his breath knowing it wouldn't come back any time soon.
"YOU HAPPENED!" Hawkeye violently pointed at his laughed figure.
"You're cute when you get mad." He leaned against the door frame as his laughter went away and smile, genuinely at her.
The way Mustang quickly changes his tone makes Hawkeye want to create a target board out of him. "You really frustrate me."
"You're not peaches and honey either, sweetheart." He walked over to her mess appearance as one of his smirks placed itself on his face while Hawkeye wanted to swat it right off his face with the back of her gun. "You're horrible at cooking."
"What gave you that idea?" She laced a bit of sarcasm. She was glad that it had rid of the tense atmosphere they usually found themselves in.
"Huh, you're even dangerous in the kitchen." The sarcastic remarks escaping his mouth raised the level of her annoyed expression to a higher mountain of his teasing.
"Why do you bother to stick around?" The question she let out had Mustang clench his fists at his side, his back to her.
"I said I would help." She stood silent in the middle of the kitchen, staring at his muscular back. He let out an exasperated sigh and turned around with a different set of values. "When I hear a 'boom' in the kitchen again remind me to ban you from it."
"Quite sending me mixed signals, Mustang." She growled, annoyed under her breath and whipped out her gun firing a bullet as it slightly grazed his cheek then it made a dent in the wall behind.
His eye twitched. He chose the next words carefully. "You're making a bigger mess, Hawkeye." He taunted her, noticed how she slowly let loose out of her comfort.
"I'll make you a target board if you don't shut up." She declared as the growing threat sat on the silence of their line.
"Go take a shower. I'll make breakfast." He commanded. She placed her gun on the one clean spot on the table near a corner.
Mustang sighed, staring in every direction of the entire kitchen filled in flour. "How does one person cause this much of a mess?"
I have to help or else she's going to keep breaking . . . He thought.
The hot water hitting her skin felt like a prick of needles poking at her flesh as the flour flowed with the water down to the drain. "Annoying bastard of the military." Hawkeye mumbled incoherent words under her breath as she glared at the wall.
You jackass military fucking dog, I'll put a bullet between your eyes . . . She thought.
The mess Hawkeye created in the kitchen, furiously made Mustang want to reconsider his mental and physical promise to her help her, but the small amount of time they speak to each other feels like he doesn't know anything about her which is true, but he can only think of one thing at the moment and that is to do nothing more than to help her.
Deep within his conscience he knows she doesn't want it, the little arguments they engage themselves in gives Mustang a better understanding of her chaotic past. He himself is running on thin line and before he gets to his flat he's now thinking-wondering if he should start laying his life down on the line for someone he barely knows, but this person means much more to him than what she is because her father dead-just not the one he knows-he'd do anything for her.
"Is that my shirt?" Roy asked, warily when she walked out, eyeing the white collared shirt.
"It's the only clean one I had?" She took a seat across the table with a plate of pancakes staring at her.
"You should wear my shirts more often." He let her see a grin show on his boyish features. She glared at him as he lightly chuckled to himself.
BANG!
She promptly threw a knife that was next to her plate above Mustang's head. His eyes twitched as he tested his luck with the one woman who will violently tear him apart, piece by piece, until there's nothing left them sew him back together and do it all over, again.
"You mad woman." He growled in seething tone. Hawkeye sent him another glare in his direction and noticed a small smile appear at the end of his playful bickering.
"Idiot." She dryly mumbled.
She sighed in defeat and started to eat the breakfast Mustang made for them. "What were you even doing in the kitchen?" Mustang suddenly asked, taking a sip from his coffee.
"I don't know. I just walked in there." She answered in a low grumble, feeling his annoyed stare.
"Were you always like this?" He asked a simple question, but it was that question he asked that made Hawkeye tightly clench her fists.
"There are things I won't explain." She stated, darkly. "I ask myself that same question." Hawkeye maliciously whispered wanting to find the reason why she became the way she did, though she already knows the answer.
"How long are we going to stay in this part of Aerugo?" He suddenly asked, not wanting to hurt her more or pity her for surviving this long.
"Two days."
"There's something else . . ." He slowly started to say.
"What is it now?" She demanded, annoyed at his futile attempts of a new conversation.
"Hughes and Havoc will be helping you out in your situation." He warily said, watching her eyes turn to rage.
"What?" She deadly gritted through her teeth. "You must really want to die." She proclaimed, ready to aim her gun at his head.
SLAM!
"I'M NOT GOING TO WATCH YOU DESTROY YOUR LIFE WHEN I CAN HELP YOU!" Mustang furiously slammed his hands on the table shouting in a dangerous area that made Hawkeye want to put a bullet in his head this very moment as angrily responded.
"SHUT YOUR MOUTH! YOU DON'T KNOW A DAMN THING ABOUT ME!" Hawkeye violently yelled. She was tired of everything that was happening to her. She was breaking-shattering more of her frame, ones she can't pick up.
"You're wrong." Mustang slowly said in anger. She sent a fierce glare in his direction. They both wanted to furiously strangle the other to get their heads out of the clouds and places they can't seem to get around. "I know you're capable of doing things the military can't do, but it doesn't change the fact that you're broken. Admit it." He coldly proclaimed as he equally glare right into her burgundy eyes he's grown attached to.
"I admit to nothing." She seethed those words out, like a poison entering her voice. She loathed this man who was standing an equal ground with her. She wants to push him away from everything and she can't and it annoys her because this man infuriates her with his irritating presence.
"Do you trust me?" He suddenly asked. It caught her off guard. She stayed quiet for a few moments as a deadly atmosphere filled the space between them.
As the slow seconds pass by, he grew impatient with her answer and walked over to her side of the table placing two firm hands on her shoulders showing her he cares. When someone like this did this to her it became difficult for her to accept someone might truly care about her in a way she can't imagine, especially Roy Mustang.
The determined look in his black eyes steadies the war she has within, separating the good and the bad, but she hated it even more when he kept pushing his life into hers. Mustang forces himself there so she can see why he's really, if she can understand that type of meaning. He just didn't know how he was going to that.
He moved his hands off her stiff shoulders then madly gripped his shirt she's wearing. "Open your eyes Riza, and listen to me." He steadily demanded in a dark change of his character. "I'm not going to hurt you."
She stared into her determined eyes with her uncertain ones. She didn't know what to say. Mustang loosened his grip on his shirt and pressed his dangerous lips to hers. She felt him wrap an arm around her waist and pressed his other hand behind her neck, kissing her in such a way she wanted to drown herself in the truth he says. She had no idea why he was now doing this, but for an unknown reason she was beginning to like him, not the situation he puts himself in with her.
Hawkeye wanted to strangle him for his inappropriate actions she can't stand. Every time he forced himself into her she pushed him away, but she can't afford to do that anymore because she feels like a cowered depending on a man she's only know four days and the way he treats her makes her feel alive and worth something to him. Riza Hawkeye knows he's the one to up with her drastic behavior.
Hawkeye stopped struggling with his forceful intentions and gripped the front of his shirt slamming their mouths closer wrapping her leg around his and brought her hands around his neck pushing her fingers through his slick black hair. She roughly tugged at his head as a moan escaped him with a mixture pleasure and pain from their atrocities. The way they move around each other while they face their darkest demons is like a war raging on inside their over thinking thoughts. Mustang only wanted her to trust him even if it was small enough to let them last until their entire chaotic mess was over then later be normal civilized people living a normal life, and when they do they'll be reminded of their past.
Hawkeye wanted him gone since the moment she ran into him as she was getting chased by the military and because she didn't want him involved further in something he couldn't turn his back on, reminding her of the tragic life to his when he was younger.
He pushed her back against the wall to steady them as he kept stealing her breath away. Hawkeye heard him slam his forearms beside her head. She grabbed the collar of his shirt and reversed the positions they're in with Mustang's back against the wall. She wrapped her legs around his waist while her body moved on its own. She hated not being in control and Mustang sensed it when he felt a change in their strange behavior and smiled into the kiss.
"Do you . . . trust . . . me?" He asked, again, trying to reclaim his breath. He knew it wouldn't be coming back any time soon when he saw the uncertain gleam in her genuine burgundy eyes.
"I . . . don't know." She whispered, slightly lowering her head.
"It's okay . . . I'll accept that answer . . . for now." His sincere smile remained. He held onto her waist as her feet hit the ground. He turned her beautiful face towards his determined one showing her the kindest smile she was ever given then stole her breath away, again for the third time, feeling the small smile on her lips.
