Summary: At the right angle, in a line of sight, one might wonder why he never stopped staring at her for so much as a second.

Theme: 025. 'So I'm crying'

Dedication: '-'soni13'-', you are a wonderful reviewer. Thank you!

Disclaimer: If I owned Full Metal Alchemist, Edward would wear a leopard-print cat suit.

Angles

025. 'So I'm crying'

It almost felt as though he were unable to breathe.

It was insane, really. He was losing his marbles, as she would put it. Losing his mind, if he ever even had a remotely average one that was. If he ever had control of his sanity before that. He really was crazy. Edward could not even turn to look at him although he was by the side of the raven-haired man. He could not offer any form of comfort that would help him in any way whatsoever. It would make no difference if he did anyway.

"Roy, you cry like a little girl."

She had been a young girl herself when she had told him that. He had tried not to cry in front of her from that day, and even when Maes died he had simply grabbed the nearest bottle of alcohol he could find in his house and poured himself a glass or three. Even though he had known she would never say anything to him about it, she did not cry herself. He had never seen her cry apart from one time, and that was one memory he would rather forget as that had been his own fault.

"Crying makes you look ugly, Hawkeye."

He had said it brutally a few days after the incident, and although she looked hurt he thought it was better than telling her the truth. Better than telling her that if he saw her cry again, it would be more than he could ever stand. It would crush him. Hurt him. Scar him. In short, it would be a painful experience. It would be the death of him, seeing her shed so much as a single fresh tear due to him. Her tears should have been shed for her own life that she believed to be in danger, not his own which she believed to be ended at the time. She was too selfless, and she was that way because of him. That quality needed to disappear, or she would get herself killed.

"Please do not smile. Please."

It was revealed his tears were not the only thing she could not stand at some point along the line. She could not stand his smile either. The tears he no longer shed at silly little wounds when he was young had morphed into a smile as he had grown older. If he smiled, he looked handsome. He looked comfortable. He looked fine. Even if he was about to break down, it hid everything. Yet she had said that sentence pleadingly, almost begging him to stop it. That had been what he had done when her father; his teacher, had died. She had neither cried nor smiled. She had stood still, watching the coffin lower into the grave with a blank expression. But it did not matter. She saw through the smile. She knew.

"Just smile, Riza! Show me you care!"

He had almost shouted it at her, his voice loud and quaking. She had looked over her shoulder at him, seeming completely unfazed by his outburst. She had done the exact opposite to what he had demanded too, frowning deeply at him. The scowl marred her pretty face, dark and different to her normal calm attitude. He had stood, not knowing what to say to her. It appeared he did not understand her as well as she understood him, and that idea gave him an unsettling feeling of being obsolete. It felt like she no longer needed him. But he was so wrong. So disgustingly, moronically wrong. He was the only one who did understand her in the slightest. Yes, he was so amazingly incorrect he had never realised all along. He was not just the one she could talk to, the one who understood her.

He was the one who loved her.

For the first time since he was a child, Roy Mustang found himself crying. Messy, cheek-staining tears that spilled down his cheeks and overflowed from the single orb not covered by the charcoal black eye patch. It was better than smiling. She had been right, he did cry like a little girl. But if it was tears that he shed for her, he did not care in the slightest. His lips curled in a thin-lipped frown as he did so, his lifeless eyes watching the small gathering of people drift away gradually. Soon, he was the only one left standing.

"It is better than smiling." He muttered to himself, looking into the sky for a few seconds before he could set eyes on the cold stone slab in front of him again. Elizabeth Hawkeye. Riza. His Riza. His Riza who he would never forget. Never forgive himself for the death of. He smiled softly at it, and then bit his lip. Blood spilled from it, but he did not care – it removed the smile, and his tears were still flowing anyway.

"So I am crying."

One of them had to do it.

Angst. I may be going insane. If I am not insane already.

Preview: She had a cureless disease, and there was nothing he could do to make it any less painful than it already was.

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