Hello! Welcome - in case you're new - to my Universe.

This'll be a three shot (unless I decide otherwise; I am always open for ideas and motivation) of Royai, starting a little darker than the usual fangirling fluff. Rated T for injury, 'mild' torture (as far as torture can be mild), and Roy losing his temper using alchemy. I was going to put this into my existing shorts, but I can already see a certain someone commenting on how there isn't a bed involved xD I see you there, TS ;) (There will be a bed involved later)

Set sometime before the events of the Manga.

Without further ado, hope you enjoy.

Riza finds herself kidnapped and extorted for information on the very man she had sworn to protect with her life.

Chapter 1 – Hijack

A low buzz echoed through her head. Like a distant droning, it rumbled, pushing through a thick fog, further and further but never quite into the open. It loomed around, enlarging instead of moving from the back to the front. The buzz became a vibration, as if tiny chisels knocked against the inside of her head, becoming stronger, drumming, booming with a headache as she came to.

Riza felt as if her brain was about to combust. A small part of her wished it would do so already, but when she took a heaving inhale, icily cold air filling her lungs. The pounding headache lessened. Her eyes did not want to open, and she did not feel any rush to command them to do so. She was entirely too tired.

Another deep breath. The cold air was starting to become a nuisance. A shiver shook her from head to toe, and she felt the light breeze nip at the skin of her legs, leaving goosebumps all over her body. Most of all her legs, she realised, frowning. It was almost as if she was not wearing…

Riza gasped the next inhale. Her eyes peeled open with effort. She had moved her hands, but nothing had happened. Not nothing, that was. She moved them, wiggled around where they were as if glued together at the wrists. Restraints.

Brutally awake now, she tore at the tight fetters. Above her was a high ceiling, several metres at least. A warehouse, she assumed. The roof was made of corrugated iron sheets, which excluded the possibility of being inside an old mansion or a church. It would also explain the freezingly cold air.

Another attempt, this time at her legs. The same result; the same disappointment of being unable to do any more than a helpless wiggle. Turning her head, she was relieved to at least be able to take a better look at her surroundings. She scanned the empty hangar for anything striking, anything that would not only give her an idea about her whereabouts, but that could specify them should she get a chance at communication.

And how had she gotten there, anyway?

Jerking at her clanking shackles – they did not feel as if she could saw or chew them open, rather like thick metal – she lifted her head. There was hardly anything in the abandoned place. As much as she had hoped for more than a stack of empty looking wooden crates and what might have been a car under a large dirty white sheet, she was glad to be alone. Someone had brought her here and she was sure that someone would return once she was awake.

Glancing down, Riza saw how her legs were, in fact, exposed to the cold. She was lying on a wooden cot of some sort, perhaps only a couple of planks, elevated on posts or table legs. It certainly felt rickety enough. Her long skirt had been opened at its side buttons, and she now saw why – she hoped it was the only reason. The gun around her thigh was gone. As was the one she had had strapped around her shoulder. Her toes were turning white, neither boots nor socks left. Her jacket was also gone, and she wished for both the sleeves of her shirt to cover her lower arms, as well as to have chosen something with a less generous neckline.

That thought made her drop her head back onto the uncomfortable cot-thingy. She could perceive steps, and the last thing she wanted was to show anyone the black script on her nape. So, at the cost of exposing her front – not that she had much of a choice where her wrists were strapped above her head – she waited.

Menacingly slowly, the clacking of shoes neared her. Riza refused to turn her head, contemplating a second too late to just pretend to still be unconscious. He must have seen, so she settled with a stubbornly defying glare upwards. Perhaps if she could ignore him for long enough… and then what? Wait for what? For whom?

It came back to her now, at least the last thing she remembered. She had returned home after a long day of work and quick trip to the shops. It had already been dark, and she had been glad to lock her the door to her apartment behind her, somehow having had the feeling of having been watched. If only she had listened to that instinct.

"Awake, are we?" a sneery male voice introduced itself. She wanted to roll her eyes. So he was one of those people, finding it necessary to hold a chat with his prisoner and display superiority in the most arrogant way. Next, she speculated, he would proceed to tell her his life story – one of loss and atrocities that were supposed to justify his kidnapping. And whatever else he would do to her.

"I don't know who you are or what you want, but you won't find it through me," Riza snapped. Ignoring him my foot, she thought to herself. She might have looked calm and unaffected, but her heart was anxiously leaping about, allowing none of her tactics to work. If only she still had a gun!

"Oh, I think I've hit the mark with you, Lieutenant Hawkeye," the stranger grinned creepily. Then again, his entire face was creepy from what she could make out from the corner of her eye. Her first thought at the mention of her rank was revenge, but his skin was a spookily pale white, if not grey, his eyes piercing without that flame an Ishvalan possessed. He did not seem very old, but his voice scratched as if from age, and wrinkles hung from his neck as he leaned over her.

She averted her eyes as not to meet his grossly protruding ones. A lunatic. Yet, whether he was a rapist or a murderer, she did not know. She assumed the latter since he would have had all the time in the world to assault her sexually while she had been unconscious.

"Aren't you curious, Lieutenant?" he taunted. Everything about him was creepy, she found, starting with the way he shuffled and swished from one side of her cot to the other, trying to catch her gaze. And she denied it, no matter his obnoxious scuffing. "Don't you want to know why I brought you here? Hmm?" he grinned, only making her turn her head away further.

She chocked on her gasp when he suddenly gripped her neck. For a second, she thought he was going to strangle her. Plump, sweaty fingers slid upwards, sending a shiver of disgust down her spine. His skin was as icy as the air around them. He held her jaw in what might have been planned out as a mockingly light turning of her chin. Instead, he drilled his nails into her carotids, forcing her head to turn his way. She glared at him with blazing eyes.

"There, that's better," his momentarily violent grin broadened again. She could count his front teeth on one hand. Oh, and how she wished to just knock those remaining ones square out of his stupid trap, gun or not. Would she not have been tied up, she would have liked to kick his groin up into his chest.

"Who are you?" she tried again. Stalling was in order. He seemed talkative enough and her heart was hammering wildly in anger and fear.

"Who am I?" the man copied. "Why is it important who I am, when you should be asking yourself what you can do for me?" his grin spread anew. His fingers wandered, and Riza tried desperately to still her breath, hoping he had not paid too much attention to the jumbling pumping of her veins.

He pinched her cheeks instead, unfortunately taking liking in that despising stare she gave him.

"Now you must be wondering how you got here," he went on, affirming her stereotype. "Why you of all people could prove to be of use to me?"

"You followed me home," Riza managed as best as she could. His grip muffled her voice, his overgrown nails piercing her cheeks.

"Oh, yes," the man fixed his goldfish eyes on hers. She refused to show him how much it actually intimidated her. Worst of all was still the fact that she could hardly move; that she had no weapon but words to save her. "It was easy to break the lock, you see? Only the dog was a pest, that darn-"

"Where is he?" Riza burst, struggling against her restraints as much as against the disgusting fingers holding her face. "What did you do to Hayate?"

"The dog? He ran," the man shrugged. Then something in his eyes changed, a spark lighting up that madness he perforated her with. "But I found him easily," he continued. She narrowed her eyes. That could have well been a lie. Heck, it had to be one, almost without a doubt, but her heart was still hammering fiercely and a tiny, fluttery scared part of her fretted him to be right. "I wonder how much of a fight he will put up once I'm done with him," the nail of the man's other hand tapped his pointy chin in pretended thought.

"Don't you dare touch him," she said despite herself; despite her frail hopes of Hayate still being in her flat. Unharmed, perhaps put into a temporary sleep like her. Perhaps outside, but not… she gulped. Not for the first time did she hate her own mind for conjuring up the most gruesome images.

"I might," the man grinned. "I might not," he scraped his nail down her cheek. "It all depends on yo- ouch!" he yelped when she raked her head forward, biting the disgustingly sweaty hand with all she could. He slapped her hard, causing her head to turn. It stung, blood rushing into her bruised cheek, and she gasped for air for a moment.

Her heart was already in her throat, her lungs on fire but her will unbroken. If he was so keen on whatever it was he wanted from her, he could have already put a gun to her temple. He was playing with her, and if there was one thing she despised above all else, it was the feeling of helplessness.

That feeling of only being a victim of the circumstances, all the while shooting innocent people to death. That feeling of trust she had been told to be engendering, albeit there had been a thousand needles disfiguring her back. That feeling of love – requited, cruelly unreachable love – tainted with the endless blood of the past and the constant dread of the future.

Without a gun, she was nothing. And she knew that without him, she was nothing, either. She did not want to be.

But he was still there, somewhere. Maybe at a bar, laughing and drinking, or maybe in bed, soundly sleeping after a long day of work. He never stopped fighting. So she would not either. She still had a job to do; someone she had to protect.

At the image of her commanding officer slumbering the night away in his massive, messy bed, she realised that she had no idea how late it was. Whether it was only an hour later from her returning home or perhaps five. A day or two. She had not eaten dinner, so her stomach rumbled in any case, not giving any hints.

The man flicked his hand, cursing her with names she never even thought of calling a mortal enemy.

"Alright, you want to do this the hard way?" his voice quaked slightly, forebodingly. "Fine, let's do it the hard way," he straightened his back. Indecisive, Riza kept her head turned. The splintering wood at her ear still better than the man's stinking breath mingling with hers.

He called across the bleak warehouse. It did not take a minute until steps crossed the cool concrete. Two pairs of shoes. Riza prayed for Hayate not to be with them.

"We'll try it this way," the leader began. He was waving is arm for a signal. One of his accomplices went to her other side. "I've already searched you for your guns and your shabby place for what I'm looking for, but you seem to enjoy a bit of hide and seek," he returned to his haughty persona. "Let's play, Lieutenant," he grinned, leaning over her face. "Where are the Flame Alchemist's gloves?" he asked. Riza frowned.

"What?"

"Don't play dumb, you know what I'm talking about. Where are they? The gloves with the transmutation circle on them," he repeated.

"I don't know," she plainly replied. The man raised a hand. She shrieked at the sudden pain on her arm. Wheezing momentarily, Riza overstretched her neck. One of the men had slit a knife through the skin below her wrist. A thin, straight cut, yet blood was already seeping out in tiny droplets. They merged, forming a scarlet line that wept as it trickled down into her palm.

"I'll ask you again," the man feigned a serene tone. "Where are the gloves?"

"I don't know," Riza retorted persistently. This time, she did not voice her pain. She winced when the knife crossed the previous injury, accidentally ripping at it, uncovering raw, bloodshot flesh. She gritted her teeth.

"But you do know," the man growled, starting to lose his patience.

"And what makes you think I have them?" she returned. He raised his hand in a different signal. Her breath stuttered when the knife backed away again, but she knew a sigh of relief would be foolish. "You said yourself they're the Flame Alchemist's," she argued. His hand reached out, violently grabbing her hair, enticing a strangled outcry from her. Tearing at it until her head rose, he came face to face with her. Her fetters simultaneously tore on her wrists, painfully overbending her shoulder joints. The blood now ran down her arms.

"I know they are the Flame Alchemist's or else I wouldn't waste my precious time with scum like you," he snarled, his breath making her gag while his grip made her scalp feel as if being torn from her skull. "I also know that you carry them around with you for emergencies and that you keep a spare pair in your uniform. Where is it?" he growled. "Tell me or I'll have you cut into bite-sized chunks," he threatened. His gaze was impaling, burning into her with greed, wrath and insanity.

She spat into his face.

The man cried in disgust, letting her head slump back onto the wood. He wiped his face, cursing and cussing madly. Riza braced herself for another attack of the knife, when her tormentor lost his temper completely. He kicked over the cot, splintering the wood to pieces. Riza gasped, her breath robbed when she crashed down onto the ground. Instinctively, her hands tried to cushion her fall.

Catching her breath, coughing from the impact, she realised the restraints to have come loose from the planks. Bits and pieces hung from them, but she could move her arms down. Still bound together, she wriggled to push herself up to sit.

"There! There it is!" the man hollered. Icy fingers seized her neck from behind. Riza yelped when the scratching nails clawed at her nape, ripping at the fabric of her shirt. Shit! Her mind raced. The tattoo. "Hold her there!" the man commanded. She pulled away from his clutch, wanting to spin around, to kick or at least scramble far enough away to give her the time to get to her fettered feet.

Heavy boots landed on her back. Pressing the oxygen out of her lungs, Riza struggled for air as she was being thrust into the concrete once more. She thought to hear a crack, something inside her chest stabbing achingly. Another foot landed on her head, the heel cording her windpipe on the side of her neck. Her insides burned, tears having sprung to her eyes in sheer panic of suffocating. Rims around her vision started to blacken it, consciousness fading when there was a crash.

A clear, shattering sound, accompanied by raging barking. Hayate! Riza recognised her loyal companion's bark immediately. One man above her wailed in agony, the next shouting curses. The pressure on her neck eased, and she grasped for breath. She tasted blood where her nose and lip had been pushed into the ground, blinking repeatedly in order to see when lifting her head proved too exhausting for another moment.

The window besides the towering front gates was broken. Just in that moment, the same gates flew open. A spark sizzled through the air, combusting in a massive ball of fire right next to her. Her ears numbed, then rung as sounds around her returned. There was the sizzling again, another few explosions following. Screams of pain ripped through the air, none of them ended when the next already tore at her eardrums.

Fire. She felt as if on fire. Something cool and moist touched her cheek.

"Hayate…" Riza muttered. She fixed her with heat and ache teary eyes on the snout that worriedly prodded her cheek. He whimpered, nudging her frantically.

Trying anew to sit up, Riza scanned herself. Her skin did not only feel as if burning, it was burning. Her skirt – everywhere but covering her legs – had caught fire, as had her shirt on her back, the flames licking at her skin through the scorching fabric. Rolling or rather collapsing onto her back, she tired to put herself out.

"Lieutenant!" Roy had finally come down from his murderous rampage, focusing on her. Hectically peeling out of his long coat, he extinguished her clothes in a second. "Lieutenant, are you alright?" he asked in his headlessness, perfectly able to see how she was not. She opened her mouth, but the only thing that came was a cough. "Here," he supported her as he helped her sit up. His eyes fell to her shackles, then her wound. He rattled on them, but his hands were too shaky, and his patience too thin to keep trying to free her of them. He growled under his breath, cursing.

Biting his infamous ignition glove, he took it off. He rummaged through his trousers' pocket, finding a white handkerchief. As carefully as he could with his hands' furious shaking and her own quaking of hurt and shock, he wrapped the soft fabric around her wrist, securing it tightly to stop the blood from flowing. Dark red drenched the handkerchief, but it soon stopped oozing out.

"Over here!" Riza heard a new voice outside the now smoking warehouse. Havoc?

"Come on," Roy scooted closer to her, propping up her legs. Throwing an estimating glance over his shoulder, he saw the open door to still be empty. No one had seen the tattoo. So he fleetly threw his coat around her back, tying it at her front since she could not put her arms through the sleeves.

She did not dare glance to the other side. The moans and howls of pain from her tormentors were still more than audible as they convulsed and squirmed. It reeked of singed flesh, and she knew that her own burns were not nearly bad enough to be what stung her nose so pungently.

Sliding one arm around her back and the other beneath her knees, Roy picked his abused Lieutenant up. She felt a sense of security settle on her constricted insides, gradually easing her. At the same time, guilt surged through her, but she brushed it aside for now.

"Put your hands around my neck," he instructed through the glove that still hung from his mouth. She followed the order without hesitation. With her wrists still tightly bound, now in the back of his neck, Riza cringed at the blood she accidentally smeared across his jugular. He did not seem to care in the slightest. Or notice.

His eyes had become wild again, mercilessly glaring down his victims. His hand detached from her back. Winding it between their torsos, he fumbled to fit back into the fingers of his glove, jerking his head to pull it down on his hand. She spooked, not least due to the rage where it fuelled and brimmed by merely catching a glimpse of the already defeated foes. Quickly, she leaned her shoulder to his, trapping his arm. Ferociously blazing eyes met hers.

"Colonel," Riza croaked. Her throat itched, and she had to release his arm to turn her head away, not wanting to cough into his face.

She was not sure whether her plea had kept him from finishing what he had started – quite possibly boiling the three men to death – or whether Havoc's appearance alongside a squad of three officers had been the saving grace. In any case, she could hardly care for the reason.

Her breathing still rasped, her burned and mauled skin as well as her ribcage and face stinging as if she was still on fire and still being beaten. But he was warm. It made the goosebumps along her legs rise anew, not least because his hand held her where her skirt did nothing to cover the side of her thigh. Her heart resumed its hasty pace, a wee flutter of her stomach joining. A shiver ran down her spine.

But he was warm. And he was there. He had come, however that was even possible.

Finally daring to let out her sigh of relief, Riza dropped her head against his collarbone. The car's engine started with a buzz, faintly reminding her of when she had awoken not an hour earlier. Hayate sat next to them on the rear seat. He made sure that his snout always touched her, currently resting it on her ankle. The shackle was still there, but Riza could ignore it now.

She closed her eyes. Absently listening to the road noise, she chose to focus on her superior's arms where they still held her protectively. His thumb was tracing up and down her arm, his breath close to her own as she had not retracted her hands from around his neck. She did not notice the meaningful glances Havoc shot the Colonel in the rear-view mirror. All she cared about was that she was safe, that he was safe, and that despite her condition, there was no other place in the world she wanted to be than where she was now – in his arms.

English is not my native language. Feedback, correction, typo notices and ideas are always welcome!