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: 026. Cureless

Dedication: Sadakai and the rest of the staff (Chaotic Lullaby, Imagining Dark Roses and OTP) over at the community An Unbreakable Bond: Roy and Riza fanfiction. Thank you for adding this story to the archive! :)

Disclaimer: If I owned Full Metal Alchemist, Armstrong would be the next Da Vinci.

Angles

026. Cureless

She could handle whatever drugs they gave her.

But it would not make her any better. Roy could do whatever he wanted as well. But she knew the truth, and she knew it all too well. She had a cureless disease, and there was nothing he could do to make it any less painful than it already was.

"Riza, please talk to me." Roy pleaded, looking at her in a way that reminded her of Hayate begging her for a treat. Except Roy seemed far more desperate, staring at her. Propped up in the hospital bed, with a vacant expression on her face as she stared at the whitewashed walls. Everything in the place was white. White sheets, white paint and white pills. As plain as her expression, without emotion and attachment to anything. Or anyone.

"I would if I had anything to say, Sir." She replied, boredom seeping clearly into her voice. It did not concern her that he was worried, although she felt slightly guilty about it. It was her fault, after all. But she ignored the feeling, continuing her calm façade. It was better for both of them that way. No harm would come to her, and he would not have to pretend that nothing ever happened. Nothing ever happened that she caused.

"What is making you so ill? Not eating, the lack of concentration – what is wrong with you? Is it something I would not understand? We have always talked to each other, Riza, from when we were young to now. So what can you not tell me?" He was rushing his words, panicking and fumbling over them. He did not know how to ask her without her rejecting his help completely. Rejecting him from her life.

"You will not understand. You never will, Sir." She smiled to herself, as if enjoying a personal joke. Her formality cut at him, and he chewed his bottom lip nervously. He could pick and choose words, rehearse what to say to her for days but it would never work. She would know, and now he was improvising. He never really knew what to say to her, but she seemed to prefer it when he was not counting on a certain reaction from her.

"My name is Roy, not Sir. You seem to have forgotten that." He said softly, reaching for her hand and placing his own on top of it gently. She looked directly at him for the first time since they had begun speaking, and she looked so pale and fragile it seemed she would break under his careful touch like glass.

"It is time you left, Sir." She choked out, a few seconds later looking away again. He began to protest, but he knew she would just call for assistance and have him removed forcefully. He may have been a dangerous man as such a powerful alchemist, but he would not harm those who were trying to help her. She knew it all too well. He ground his teeth against each other, making a similar sound not dissimilar to that of nails scraping down a chalkboard. Grabbing his coat, he exited the room swiftly and without any further questions. But she knew he would come back again the next day, and ask her the same thing. One day she was certain she would give in. But she could not, not now, not just yet.

She could not tell him that she did not have a disease; that making sure she was being treated with all different medications by these baffled doctors and nurses was not actually helping at all. She was not ill in the way he believed her to be when he had taken her there, trying to make her better again. But he had been so busy trying to make her well once more he had not realised she was never really sick, she had something completely cureless. Love was cureless, and she had went and done it.

She had fallen in love with him, Roy Mustang.

Angsty-fluff? I do not know, this is somewhat…odd. I do not like this one. Plus, I am now more than a quarter of the way through. Seventy four to go, I do believe. Also, mega-super-ultra fast update. The writing epidemic has finally caught up with me again.

Preview: She was the one that he always ran to, the one he depended on.

Reviews are loved. :)