Royai Week 2022 Day 4: Saudade
Word Count: 622
Author: aquietwritingcorner/realitybreakgirl
Rating: T
Characters: Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye
Warning: NA
Summary: Riza didn't realize just how comfortable she and Roy had gotten around the team until they weren't there anymore.
Notes:
Saudade
Loneliness was not a feeling that Riza Hawkeye was unused to. She had felt some variation of it nearly every day of her life. She was no stranger to feeling alone even when surrounded by people. It had been that way most of her life. This time, though, the feeling was hitting harder and stronger than it ever had before.
The team had been split up. Falman to the north, Fuery to the south, Breda to the west, and Havoc, retired, and out in the east. She herself had been pulled from Roy's side and put at the Fuhrer's.
She knew that part of the enemy's plan was to have her living right under their thumb, in sight of Roy, but with him unable to touch her, to protect her, and with her unable to protect him either. It was part of their plan, their sick twisted torture, and Riza knew that she could withstand it. That part, she could withstand easily enough. Both she and Roy had done enough play acting over the years that it shouldn't be a problem.
What she hadn't expected, though, was the way the loss of the whole team would affect her.
Riza hadn't realized just how reliant on them she had become. It wasn't even the big things, although, yes, she did miss those. But it was the little things. They had become so close and so good at keeping each other's secrets that it had almost become second nature to just be relaxed in their presence.
No one blinked twice when she gave a lunch order for the colonel and knew exactly what he liked. No one was surprised when she picked things off of his food that she knew he wouldn't like. No one questioned how he knew exactly how she liked her tea, or how he knew just what to get for her when she wasn't feeling well. No one thought anything more than "we want in on the joke" when the two found something funny that no one else did. A hand on the back or the shoulder wasn't questioned. Riza knowing exactly how to best help Roy get through his paperwork, or Roy knowing exactly how Riza wanted her desk arranged wasn't even blinked at.
Neither Roy nor Riza had to worry about the little things with the team around. They were known, accepted, expected, and not talked about.
To suddenly have that ripped away was jarring.
Riza found herself having to hold back from so many things she hadn't realized she had let loose. No more commenting on how Roy would or wouldn't like a food. No more tea made for her. No more small commodities left for her. No more inside jokes or laughing at things that echoed back to their past. No more hands on the back or shoulders or even lingering when pulling out a chair. No more just knowing about each other. Anything like that was now dangerous, exposing even more weakness to their enemies, letting things about them slip that neither of them wanted to let slip.
Riza found herself, more often than not, longing for that time again, melancholy stealing over her. When she passed the doors to the old office, a sense of nostalgia filled her, along with the quiet knowledge that things could not return to what they were, no matter how much she wished for it. On the rare occasions that she met Roy's eyes, unguarded to each other for just the briefest of seconds, she could tell that he felt the same way.
There was nothing that she could do about it, though, except accept feeling, and look forward to the day when she would feel it no more.