Category: Romantic Fluff

Characters: Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye

Prompt taken from the Tumblr blog hellsdemonictrinity! Please check them out!

Roy looked up at the sky as cannonballs sailed overhead with shrill screams, ripping through the smoke-choked air as they plummeted slowly to the ground to crash violently into the simply constructed wood-and-stone buildings a few hundred yards from where he was standing. The structures, no more than mere hovels, splintered and erupted upon impact, sending shards of sharp wood and stone careening in all directions; the small, deadly projectiles ripped through the wailing civilians as they fled for their lives, their screams of pure terror and agony blending in with the angry wails of the iron balls that fell like meteors to the earth. Every once in a while, the smoke would be forced away by the high-speed giant bullets to reveal a flaming blue sky above, but it was soon overtaken again by the thick blanket of ash and smoke and dust that rose from the battlefield. Roy lived for that glimpse of blue among the ugly hues of brown and black and grey, because it proved to him that even in all this destruction and death there was still something beautiful left.

Something that he could hold on to.

Slowly, the booming of the cannons and their shrieking spawn fell silent, and all he could hear were the moans of the dying and the sobbing of those still trying to flee drifting on the wind, hot with the heat of the flames flickering amongst the carnage stretching out before him. Red and orange danced amongst the muted browns and grays, eagerly spreading across any surface that would satisfy its endlessly hungry maw. Soon, the horizon glowed with the flickering flames, crackling with such fierce intensity that the screams were completely eclipsed- but not to Roy. He could still hear them, the agonized wails of men and women who lay amongst the rubble, the terrified shrieks of mothers clinging to their children and trying to shield them from harm, the hurried wail of a child who had suffered the bitter, bitter taste of war… All of them echoed in Roy's head, and he could not block them out, no matter how hard he tried…

After the fires had died out, it was obvious from the complete and utter destruction that Roy's alchemical powers would be unnecessary overkill. Still, there was the matter of eliminating any unlikely survivors, and so he and his troop of soldiers approached the blackened shell of the small village, their noses crinkling as their nostrils burned with the acrid odor of ash and charred flesh. A few of them were still green, and as they stumbled across the blackened bodies they stumbled off behind one of the collapsed hovels to retch. Roy almost envied them; they, at least, had some shred of humanity left. Roy had none. Stoic, unfeeling, hard as stone, he walked amongst the ruin he had helped make. Occasionally the air would ring with a gunshot as a survivor was discovered. The more bloodthirsty fellows would have at them with their bayonets, and there would be a shrill squeal followed by acute silence only filled with the lingering crackle of small flames and the crunch of their boots across the soot-covered, rubble-littered path.

Roy whipped around as he heard the sharp sliding of feet down a roof, his hand raised and fingers poised to snap, but he tensed when he realized it was not an enemy who had appeared so suddenly in his vicinity. Riza Hawkeye landed lightly on the sandy ground as she hopped off a large section of a collapsed building, perfectly positioned to act as a slope. Her sniper rifle was slung over her shoulder, and her uniform was smeared with dirt and soot, as was her face. Somehow, that did not make her less pretty. She saluted him as he lowered his arm, and then approached with an equally calm, set expression.

"I've come to assist in the clearing of this area," she informed him before glancing around the blackened shell that had once been a thriving, bustling residential area. Now it was a haunt for ghosts, only inhabited by the damned beings that they were. "It seems the cannons did their work," she remarked casually. No. The men did their work. Cannons don't destroy; people do, he thought to himself. Abruptly, Riza narrowed her eyes and she slowly reached to pull her gun around, indicating that she saw movement. Roy narrowed his eyes, flicking his gaze across the ruined landscape, until he spotted a pair of frightened red eyes staring back at him from the darkness of a half-collapsed hovel. Then, they vanished, and out from behind the rubble sprang the form a little Ishvalan boy as he made a mad dash to escape. Neither Roy nor Riza moved, perhaps secretly hoping that their soldiers had been oblivious.

Of course, they had not.

Several shots rang out in the air. One bullet bounced off a brick, chipping the stone. Another shot into the dust at the boy's feet, causing him to pause and try to zig-zag away. However, the third caught him in the leg, and he starting screaming in agony, and Riza sighed under her breath as she raised her gun and peered into the scope, and all the while he was just crying, and screaming, and screaming…

Roy awoke with a start, clutching his bedsheets tightly as he shot into a sitting position, panting heavily and drenched in a cold sweat. The room around him was dark, but a little moonlight streamed in through the window, half-open due to the summer heat. The curtains fluttered slightly in the night breeze, and it made Roy feel cold as it brushed over his sweat-slicked skin. Slowly, the heart hammering in his chest quieted, and his wide eyes slowly closed as he released a heavy exhale of both relief and exhaustion. He ran a hand over his face, convinced he had more wrinkles than before he had went to bed, before lightly pulling the sheets off of him and sliding out of the bed. Barefoot and bare-chested, he walked across the carpeted floor and into the bathroom, turning on the tap and leaning down to splash cold water onto his face to chase the lingering dream away. After he turned off the water, he leaned over the sink, his knuckles white as he clenched the bathroom counter with unnecessary strength. In the back of his mind, the screaming echoed, unrelenting, growing louder with every passing second.

"Which one was it this time?" came a soft voice from the bedroom, and Roy lifted his head wearily. In the gloom, his wife was sitting up in bed, her golden hair flowing around her face and over her shoulders as she gazed at him levelly. She was wearing that same stoic, set look as she had in the dream, but yet it was softer; there was a hint of a smile in the corners of her mouth, and in her eyes was not the hardness of a soldier, but all the love that a woman could give. "Talk to me. I'm here for you," she continued as her expression softened into a smile. With another small sigh, Roy straightened up, looking at himself in the mirror and noting the bags that had appeared under his eyes.

"The little boy," he answered quietly. "After we destroyed the village by cannon, we walked the ruins, and you joined us there. He tried to run away," he clarified after a moment of trying to suppressing the screams suddenly silenced by a single shot. "You gave him mercy."

"Oh, yes. That one," she recalled bluntly. Though it would appear that Roy was the calm, collected leader, when the uniform came off and the thoughts ran loose, his mind was in shambles. Riza had fought that battle and won; for Roy, it was the war left unfought. Awakening in the middle of the night with imaginary blood on his hands and screams in his head was not an uncommon occurrence. As he continued to gaze miserably into the smooth glass, he heard Riza slide out of the bed and come walking over to join him in the bathroom. She was wearing on of his button-up shirts; he wasn't sure why, but she liked to do so often. Perhaps it comforted her in some way. As well as he knew her and as much as he loved her, Roy still sometimes couldn't guess what she was thinking nor explain her actions. "That one was hard for you. I remember," she murmured as she wrapped her arms around him from behind and peered around his muscular arm, still wearing that small smile.

"How do you do it, Riza?" he sighed deeply and closed his eyes, leaning his head back as the phantasms of those he had slain flashed in the dark. "I see them and hear them, so clearly… I was following orders, plain and simple, and even now I'm working so hard to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. So why do they still haunt me?"

"They haunt me, too," she answered simply, and that shocked him enough to open his eyes and glance down at her. She was staring into the mirror, and her soft face looked suddenly so tired, with the glassy eyes of someone haunted as he was. He didn't understand. Riza did not wake up in the dead of night as ghosts of years past plagued her dreams; Riza, the one who had followed him into Hell and back, who had been there for him in all his times of need, the one he had always counted on because he knew that she was more put together than he could ever be. Was everything he had ever thought a lie? "I dream, sometimes, or when my mind wanders I think back to those times, and the things I did frighten me," she admitted quietly, and then looked up at him with a smile. "But I remember that I was not alone, nor did I ever accept those atrocious things we did. I kept fighting, with you, and the Elric brothers, and Alex, and everyone. The people I killed will never leave me, Roy- but I no longer feel guilty. I did what I had to do then, and then I did what I had to do to make up for it. You did even more- you tore down the government that made that possible and made amends for the horrible things that happened, shouldering that burden by yourself. They will never leave you, but the blood is no longer on your hands," she explained calmly.

Roy stared down at her, struck deeply. He had tried to tell himself that many times, but somehow it had never stuck; it had always come off as wishful thinking, or trying to run away from what he had done. Yet, hearing those words from her mouth seemed so much more true. He glanced down at his hands, which had borne so much blood over the years, and yet now as he stared down at them they seemed more pure than they had ever been. My war was won. I've been fighting a needless battle, he realized.

"Riza…" he murmured and looked back at her, but the words of gratitude simply would not come. She knew what he meant, though. She stood up on her tip-toes to lightly press her mouth to hers, and she let the kiss linger for a moment before pulling back and turning around to saunter back into the bedroom.

"Come on. I know how much you like your sleep. You'd better get back in here, because I'm the one who has to deal with you in the morning," she sighed as she clambered back into bed and curled up beneath the sheets. Roy blinked at her, then chuckled and followed after her, climbing into the bed and laying down on his back with a small sigh. As Riza pressed close against him, he lifted an arm to slide it beneath her head, holding her close to him. Soon her breathing settled into a soft, steady rhythm, and Roy listened to it for a while, watching her sleep. She always seemed more innocent when she was sleeping, not like the confident, powerful woman she was by day. That thought made him smirk, as he knew Riza would never forgive him for thinking something like that.

"You really are something," he sighed and leaned down to press a kiss into her golden hair before straightening back out and closing his eyes. Somehow, sleep came easier to him than it had in a long time, and for once, he dreamed of happier things…