AN - As stated before, I don't believe any of the events in this story could possibly be canonical, but for the sake of an interesting story, I bended a few of the common conceptions people have about certain characters. Many people have assumed that Riza had other relationships before Roy, I've just elaborated on some of them. Thank you for putting up with my experimentation.
And a nod to Dailenna, who guessed correctly, even if she was only joking.
Chapter Six – The Tulip Glass
The day after the events behind the woodshed, Riza took up a pair of garden shears and cut her hair herself, much to her mother's deepest chagrin. The result was a sloppy hodgepodge of long and short pieces of hair sticking wildly out of her scalp. She looked like a hay bale, but she was satisfied with her work. She only needed to be rid of what Bobby had touched.
She received a slap across the mouth for her efforts, but nobody asked her why she had done such a thing. It was just like a child to do something irrational for curiosity's sake. Will and Curtis were thought to be coconspirators, an accusation they were loath to deny. They didn't even have the sense enough not to giggle when she traipsed in through the backdoor looking like her hair had been a casualty in a terrible accident, and they probably thought it was extremely funny to claim responsibility for the calamity.
She was dragged by her ear to the hairdresser's, where a woman with long, red nails primped and prodded the mess. Riza felt very sorry for this woman who had to deal with her irate mother, but she regretted nothing, even when the bloody red nails took up a proper pair of scissors and snipped at the rest of her hair until all the strands were evenly shorn. As per to her mother's request, the woman tried to make it resemble a pixy bob, but Riza, who silently observed the rescue efforts in a mirror, knew that the hair she had left was not going to conform. It was going to be very short.
She was left with a cap of soft blond fuzz, rather like a kitten's fur. Her mother lamented the loss of her hair like the loss of a third child. Riza ran her hand across her head, engrossed in the tactile sensation of weightlessness. Surely, Bobby wouldn't think she was pretty now.
The twins whooped and cheered when they saw her new boyish hairstyle, and the rest of her cousins agreed that her hair was the very height of awesome. She sought Bobby's eyes in all the commotion, driven by a reckless impulse to see what he thought of her impudence, but he paid her no attention, just like before. It was as if she'd dreamed the bizarre events of yesterday, and it was easier to believe that she had. She'd fallen asleep in the Magnolia and dreamed that he had touched her in the sticky sweet heat, and he still didn't remember her name.
She decided it was a dream best forgotten and cast it resolutely aside. There was nothing to be gained by puzzling over the meaning of the abstract, because the abstract was ugly. Suicide. Pain. Shame. Depravity. Beautiful things bleeding at the throat.
She moved deftly from shooting inanimate targets to hunting game with her cousins. Riza Hawkeye cut her hair and shot down partridges, and the changes that marked maturity made her feel very young and silly. Her life coalesced and spooled around a hard little nucleus of silliness. She scraped off layer after layer, but there was never any point.
Until she met Roy Mustang and fell helplessly in love with him.
She didn't even see it coming. As far as she was concerned, she'd never ever like a boy in that way, not after Bobby's less than perfect introduction into what that was all about. Then Roy came to study alchemy under her father, and it was as if she'd discovered a whole new gender that hadn't previously existed. Roy was so much more than just any old boy. He was Roy, and she loved him. Or rather, she loved him in the fantastic way of a lonely eleven-year-old girl. Senselessly.
She fell in love with the way his dark eyes moved and the way his hands gestured when he talked. She loved his lazy smiles, his dry wit, and the way he never called her anything but Riza. Not Pretty Girl or Baby Girl or Darling. Just Riza.
He never touched her more than she wanted either, and his respectful distance made her grow fonder. He didn't casually lay his hands on her shoulders or playfully tousle her short mane of hair. He didn't even gaze at her for too long when he spoke. She observed him with the wary wonder of a stray dog puzzling over the enigma of affection and imagined whole futures that involved just the two of them together. Just Roy and Riza. Their names strung together nicely.
When her father died, it was only logical for her to follow him. To protect him. She didn't know why, but she knew he needed it. He needed her.
Her mother would have preferred her doing something safer, but her mother's opinion never held any sway with her. Her mother ignored her for long stretches of time, unless she wanted to dress her up or parade her around. Her grandfathers doled out much craved attention and affection whenever they came to visit. They praised her for her innate talent with guns, so she became an excellent shot. She became even better when she knew she had to follow Roy.
She made her choice, and the military snapped her up eagerly. Her grandfathers approved, as she knew they would. Their approval was all that mattered. One of her grandfathers boasted an upstanding military career of his own, and the other was proud to have his spirited granddaughter in the service. It didn't seem especially difficult to make a living shooting guns, and sometimes she regretted the simplicity of her vocation, but her skills were the envy of the regiment. And Roy was there somewhere.
Her infatuation embarrassed her.
The academy was a stunning dance of bullets. She trained to be a sharpshooter, one of the elite, but the fact that she was being hand-groomed to hunt human targets didn't strike any deeper chord within her. Her mind didn't equate the concept with the reality. She only knew the simplicity and the grace of hitting a mark dead on. It thrilled her on a visceral level.
Then she learned that war was death for all involved, death of soul, death of conscience, death of bodies, and her body, she soon learned, was a commodity. She was one of very few women in a war-torn world of men, and she was pursued doggedly, sometimes outright brutishly by lonely soldiers with very few distractions from violence. A battlefield, like a prison, changed all the rules about what men will and won't do for a little pleasurable company.
In her case, men who got unmanageable learned quickly that the pretty blond girl who looked too young and soft for battle was the object of particular interest for a General. In those first few months of war, she had not yet developed the coarseness and the feral sense of self-preservation necessary to deliver swift or violent rejection if the need arose. Interested men could sense this, but General Hakuro did not suffer their advances for long. She was grateful, and she was indebted.
He liked her in particular, and his specific attentions were both divine and distressing in a simultaneous bundle. He protected her to the fullest extent of his rank, and he always seemed to have offerings that most soldiers would have given their eyeteeth for a taste of: red wine, fresh cheese, and clean linens that weren't infested with sand. She didn't ask herself why he was so kind to her. She knew the answer. She knew Bobby's answer. She just didn't think about it. When he touched her back or arms with heated intent, she didn't think about it. What was and wasn't acceptable behavior for a commanding officer when war was erupting in every direction? Did her body even matter when thousands were dying? She didn't know enough, and the things men wanted where silly and dreamy anyway. She didn't think about them.
She didn't find it all too surprising when, two weeks into the war, he took her to his bed, softly, insistently. If anyone else knew, they never said a word. Nobody questioned their Generals on the battlefield. If one of them wanted to keep a pretty little pet, technically it wasn't spelled out as forbidden in the rule books. Loop holes jumped to attention before powerful men.
She learned the rules of this arrangement quickly. Don't talk, don't think, don't get caught, go out, fight, and then repeat. Blissfully simple. His tent was clean and spacious, and he was never cruel. She grew accustomed to his hands fluttering like drunken moths across her skin, fisting her wrists in a tight grip and pressing her down. Then his damp lips against the shell of her ear, telling her he loved her even though she knew this was a lie. He must have thought the words would placate her, but she was already entombed in apathy. Ishbal was another dream, and a silly one at that.
There was still a lingering thought of Roy, but sex and love did not relate. She could love her dark haired boy and sleep with the General, and nothing about that arrangement seemed terribly wrong until she met him again on the battlefield.
She met Roy again. She woke up. Everything was wrong.
Lydia Hawkeye's death abbreviated the visit to Isis.
Her condition worsened in a matter of days. The hospital, the best in Southern Amestris, simply lacked the resources to treat her. She passed quietly and with dignity. The doctors assured them of this like a mantra. Hawkeye and her grandfathers were treated to a parade of half-hearted condolences and timid hand pats when the news was delivered. The funeral was the next day.
It was a small black affair. Riza stood between her grandfathers, and felt oddly detached. Midway through the service, her stomach clenched and rolled fitfully. The landscape smeared, grass, casket, sun, like a triptych in abstract, or the holy trinity of nausea. She excused herself to find a bathroom, was sick, dabbed at the corners of her mouth with a wet cloth, and thought about mothers.
Mothers had been having babies since the beginning, so why did the process still seem so wholly unnatural? She didn't even like babies. Was that natural? Even when she was a child, other girls lugged around baby dolls with names like 'Madison' or 'Abigail,' and she had never understood Her first rifle had been christened 'Cleo' but she didn't think that was the same thing. She liked her grandfather's horses, the books in the library, and the hummingbirds on the lawn. Not babies.
Looking at herself in the mirror above the washroom sink, she wished she had been more interested in those dolls. What help were hummingbirds when there was a new person inside her? Did all mothers feel this overwhelmed or just the ones doomed to be incompetent? If only she had her mother now. Lydia would have soothed everything over. Lydia would have stroked her hair and told her about everything beautiful in the world.
Lydia was dead.
She touched her temples and went back to the gravesite.
Roy watched her hurry away and then return with unveiled concern, but he knew she would not allow him to approach. She had stood apart from him on purpose, and he was just as angry. Everything hurt, from the ground against his feet to the cantaloupe wind in his nose. Crows gathered in mobs on the branches of the maples and muttered darkly to each other in hushed voices. An irreverent meadowlark interrupted the solemnity with a cheerful burst of warbling. He wished she wasn't pregnant.
There was nothing left to keep them in Isis, so they returned to Central without delay. Hawkeye wanted to work. Mustang wanted a merciful death. He supposed his beautiful Lieutenant would deliver if he set aside his paperwork.
He saw the window on the night before their departure from Isis.
He wouldn't have noticed it at all if it wasn't stained glass, the first stained glass window he'd come across in his explorations. Hawkeye had mentioned a stained glass window at her grandfather's estate once before. This had to be it.
It was cloistered away above the landing of a passage-like side staircase. He was climbing the creaking steps with a box full of alchemical research notes. Mr. Hawkeye had given him access his library, and told him it was perfectly fine if he brought some notes back to Central with him. Nobody else was getting any use out of them, so Roy decided to paw through a few stacks and look for anything worth taking. It was a good way to get Hawkeye off his mind.
Except, he saw the window.
It was little, octagonal in shape, and it depicted a hummingbird. There was nothing extraordinary about it at first glance, but the more he studied it, the more it interested him. The glass wasn't good quality. It was almost completely opaque in places, but the craftsmanship was careful and neat, and the black in the bird's eyes seemed to capture a certain expression. It was fluttering over a buttery gold background, and there was a teardrop of magenta at its throat. He could see why Riza liked it.
He traced the edge of one emerald wing with a fingertip and moved on.
Central was snowy and dreary.
The office was a cyclone of late paperwork that needed to be completed immediately. The instant he walked through the door, he was greeted with the sight of a large stack on his desk that was at least three times its original size. His subordinates gave him slightly apologetic greetings and quickly occupied themselves with tasks that would not incur their Colonel's wrath. They weren't sure if the paperwork, the weather, Lieutenant Hawkeye's icy demeanor, or some combination of the three would set him off, but none of them wanted to be nearby when the inevitable explosion occurred.
Roy didn't care a great deal about what his subordinates thought. The only person who mattered was quietly going about her work without even glancing his way. She hadn't spoken to him since they'd exchanged hellos, and now she was ignoring his very pointed stares in her direction. Her obvious refusal to acknowledge his gaze was making him grind his teeth, and the teeth grinding was beginning to make his head hurt.
When lunchtime rolled around Maes Hughes decided to stop by for a visit, and his headache only worsened. Everyone else had fled to the cafeteria, leaving him alone with his thoughts and his paperwork. Even Hawkeye had strolled out with a vague announcement that she wouldn't be back from the range for at least an hour. Hughes surveyed all of the empty seats and sighed. So it was bad enough that everyone felt the need to run?
He seized the nearest chair, pulled it over to Roy's desk, and plopped himself down. The Colonel tried to appear extremely busy. Hughes didn't seem to notice.
He straightened his glasses and leaned back comfortably, "I take it you aren't going to have lunch with the others."
Roy bowed his head over the nearest document, "No."
Ah. Hughes scratched his chin and watched a glower formulate like a storm cloud on his friend's brow. This was definitely about the girl. For all his charm, Roy was often completely inept at communicating with the one woman he actually wanted.
"What's going on with you two?"
Roy looked up, "Me and Hawkeye?"
"No, you and Alex Armstrong," Hughes deadpanned, "Tell me what happened in Isis."
"Her mother died," Roy went back to checking boxes as if that remark ended the conversation.
"Yes, I heard," Hughes was beginning to want to rip those papers off the desk, so Roy would have to pay attention, "But what about the two of you. I thought the trip would help you resolve things, but you're still avoiding each other."
"We might have fought again," he confessed to the desk in an undertone, "I think I'm angry with her. It's like I can never say the right thing. By all accounts, I should just drop this entire mess. She clearly doesn't want my help. But I can't let her go."
"You seem surprised," Hughes rocked back and watched the winter sun dribble out from behind a cloud and spike through the window with a stinging severity, "We all could have told you that. Everyone knows Colonel Mustang would be the last man to desert his comrades, least of all her."
Roy shook his head, "No, I'm not surprised. Just disappointed in myself."
He glanced at Hughes. He could tell by his expression--the narrowed eyes and the drawn mouth--that he was preparing to say something he wasn't going to like. He had a pretty good idea what it was going to be too. He'd been playing hide-and-go-seek with the notion for a while, but now Hughes was going to bring it up, and he couldn't escape. Why couldn't he stuff his fingers in his ears? La la la not listening . . .
"Did it ever occur to you that she may have been--"
"Yes!" he stabbed violently through Hughes's conspiratorial tone before he could go any further, "It has occurred to me quite frequently, so please, just don't say it."
Hughes met his eyes and nodded. In that single moment, Roy knew his friend understood the confusion and the rage he could not put to rest. Pure, undiluted aggression was starting to tighten his nerve endings whenever the thought of someone hurting her crossed his mind, and he didn't need it spoken aloud. How could anyone? How could she? He doubted she would have breathed a word about it if pregnancy hadn't resulted, and that was even more frightening. How long had something been going on? How could he not have known?
He gave voice to this last train of thought, "What I don't understand is if she was, why wouldn't she tell anyone? That's what doesn't make sense."
Hughes shrugged, "She told you."
"She didn't tell me that. She only told me she was pregnant."
"But she did come to you," he pointed out. "She came to you when she was frightened, probably more frightened than you realize, and maybe that was all she could say."
"So I was supposed to just figure it out?" Roy snorted, "That's not exactly the first conclusion I usually jump to."
"Maybe you weren't supposed to figure anything out. She might have had reasons for not telling you," He leaned forward, watching the sun again as it traversed the office walls, "Rape is not always as simple as being attacked by a stranger in the park. I mean, she carries guns and ammo on her person at all times. Do you really think she'd let any old rapist get near her?"
Roy frowned. Hughes had a point, and it was distressing. There were so many things that weren't adding up, and he was beyond useless if he didn't know what was going on.
He spread his hands in a gesture of utter loss, "What if she never tells me what happened?"
Hughes gave him a pitying look, "You need to talk to her again. If you continue to avoid each other, you will lose her," he smiled slightly, "And Lord knows, I don't want to have to put up with you if you lose that sniper girl."
After mulling over his talk with Hughes, Roy decided to pay his Lieutenant a visit. Actually, the decision was sort of spur of the moment, but he preferred to think that he meant to do it.
First, he had ordered her to go home. Normally, she would have argued with him if he tried to send her away, but today she had given him a level look, packed up her things, and sauntered out wordlessly. As he watched her leave, he had an insane urge to start ripping things. Instead, he had holed up in his office for three more long and grueling hours of self-inflicted paperwork. Night was well established when he finally wrapped up his torture.
It was after these three stir-crazy hours at the office that he made his impromptu trip to her apartment. One minute he was heading home, and the next, he was trudging up the snow-covered stairs leading to her building with a gap in his memory where the explanation of how he'd arrived there was supposed to be. He was surprised he even knew where her apartment was. He'd only visited the place twice before. It was as if his feet had simply decided to act independently from his higher brain functions.
He stared at her door for at least a minute trying to pull together some shred of a plan, but thoughts evaded him at every turn. Finally, he decided to see if she was home and take it from there.
He knocked, waited, breathed. She answered the door looking slightly dazed. Wisps of her hair were falling from her bun, framing the contours of her face and resting against the side of her mouth. His fingers twitched, but he trapped them in the confines of his pockets. The temptation was thankfully relieved when she brushed it back from her face in one unconscious motion.
"Hi . . . I uh . . ." he scratched his neck, "I just . . ."
She opened the door wider, "Come in."
Something was amiss about her, but he couldn't place it. She seemed much more nonchalant, but maybe it was just her attire. He'd never seen her in slippers before. He'd never seen her look at him like that before either. He wondered if she even realized her fingers were still resting against her jawbone from when she'd swept her hair aside. It was as if she'd forgotten to complete the motion.
She stood back, and he stepped inside. She leaned against a wall and watched him process her apartment. It hadn't changed since he'd seen it last. It was still Spartan and serene. It still hummed with a warm memory of her touch on every panel and surface. There were only a few lights on, and a large cardboard box was lying open on her kitchen table. There was also a glass beside the box. A small, upturned tulip of a glass that he recognized for what it was.
He noticed the half-empty bottle as he was shrugging off his coat. It was sitting on the counter upright and capless like a little glowering gnome just waiting to be noticed. Shock boiled through him and came out in a small hiss of surprise. He looked at her harder. Other than a strange murkiness in her eyes, she appeared completely lucid. She always hid things remarkably well.
She read the direction of his gaze and produced the bottle cap, seemingly from thin air, "Was there something specific you wanted Colonel?"
He wanted to know how much had been in the bottle before tonight. She looked down at the cap she was flipping between her fingers, half entranced, half bored, like something feline playing with a mouse. White light warnings flashed behind his eyes. Careful. Careful. Proceed with caution. He approached her slowly, as if she might bolt at any moment, but she didn't move.
"Hawkeye," He slid his fingers into her palm and extracted the cap without a sign of protest from her, "Did something happen?"
She made a strange barking sound that might have been a laugh and moved past him to sink into a seat at the table, "I called my Grandpa in Isis. Told him I was pregnant. He didn't take that too well."
Roy followed her and dragged up a chair beside her, "What did he say to you?"
"He told me I need to marry the father," She laughed again, dragged her fingers through her loosening hair and laughed like that was the funniest thing she'd ever heard, "I need to marry the father of this child, or my grandfather won't speak to me again."
Roy didn't find the news at all funny, "What?"
She continued, spilling out a truth he didn't expect, "But that's not going to happen because he's already married."
"What!?"
He knew it had to be the alcohol that was making her so forthcoming. He knew that, and yet, this revelation stupefied him. Married? What did that mean? What the hell was going on?
Hawkeye rambled on, oblivious to his shock, "Oh yes, that's the truth, Roy Mustang. He is married, and he wouldn't leave his wife even if he wanted to. How's that for pleasant? There better not be such places as Heaven and Hell, because you're not the only one who thinks they wouldn't make it past the pearly gates."
She lunged for the glass in the center of the table, but he snatched it before her fingers closed around the lip. Her face fell into a disappointed frown. He glared back at her contemplatively with the glass now safely in his possession.
"How much have you had to drink?"
"Does it matter?" She stood up, pounced on him, and tried to wrest the tiny vessel from his hands, "You drink. Why can't I?"
It wasn't easy to fight her off. Her movements were listless and uncoordinated, but she was tenacious in her pursuit. And strong. Drinking had not dampened the iron pull of her grasp in the slightest. Soon the little skirmish over the shot glass had turned into a battle that each was determined to win.
"It matters because I know you don't," He leaned back, holding the glass out of her reach until she had practically climbed into his lap in her attempts to reclaim it.
When they were face to face, she suddenly stopped. She seemed to realize just what she was doing, and he saw something unbelievable flicker to life in her eyes. He'd seen desire in other women's faces before, but never in Hawkeye's. He'd scarcely dared to hope that she could possibly want him, but the look she was giving him left little doubt. Her fingers relaxed their death-grip on his forearm, and he forced himself to swallow.
It was downright criminal for someone to be so appetizing. He could close the gap so easily. He could lean forward and kiss her. Or she could kiss him. Either way, his thirst would finally be quenched. He could kiss her . . . and then . . . and then . . . Oh God, her eyes were so catlike . . . and her inhibitions were alarmingly low . . . Thoughts drained away from his brain, trickled down his spine, and pooled into his lap. This was going to be embarrassing if he didn't do something quickly. Dead rats. Dead, maggot-infested, unsexy rats.
He sprang up from the seat and shoved her away.
She reeled back with the glass in her hand--how had that happened?--and braced herself against the edge of the counter. From there she watched him, with an expression that was hedging on smug, for another reaction.
He was going to have to bring up the thing he didn't want to mention, both to chill his veins and instill some sense in her, "You shouldn't because of your condition, Hawkeye. You know you shouldn't."
That had the desired effect. She froze and looked at the glass. After moment she set it down without a word.
But watching her was heartbreaking. She slumped into the counter as if she'd lost the will to stand and the feeble guise of sobriety she'd been trying to take refuge in. She let all the trappings fall away, and he recognized the naked look in her eyes from a time he'd tried everything to forget. The terror and uncertainty when she'd pleaded with him to kill her after Ishbal stirred to the surface. Forlornness in her eyes was just as foreign and disconcerting now as it was then. She wasn't supposed to be this way. If his bastion could be broken, what chance did he have? He couldn't stand it.
"I'm sorry," he said.
She clearly hadn't expected that, "About what?"
"About everything," He raked a hand through his hair and eyed the bottle on the counter hungrily, "Anything I've done. I'm sorry for it all. I only wanted to help you, but I seem to have done a bang up job of it."
Her eyes lost focus, and for a moment, he saw a woman drowning. He couldn't figure out where she stored all the pain when she was sober, or how she'd kept it from him. Was he so absorbed in his own problems that he hadn't even noticed?
"What do you want from me?" he asked her, "Tell me what you want me to do, and I will do it for you."
"Stay with me," She swayed toward him, wobbled, and had to brace herself on his shoulder, "Don't let me hurt myself anymore."
"I won't leave," He gave in and tucked a stray tendril of hair behind her ear, "Believe you me, I won't leave you alone now."
With that, he took her wrists and guided her out of the kitchen area. She spared one last look at the glass and fumbled after him obediently. They passed the living area with its comfy sofa and creamy glow cast by the reading lamps. He continued to pull her along.
She glanced around in bewilderment, "Where are you taking me?"
"To bed," he grunted.
She hesitated, ". . . Sir?"
"To sleep, Lieutenant. Now if you would be so kind as to show me the way . . ."
He stopped at the sound of a giggle, and turned to find her shaking with silent mirth. He would say this for her unprecedented binge. It made her a lot less concerned about the propriety of her superior officer tucking her into bed, and it made her easier with the laughs. Nobody would ever believe him if he came to work saying he'd witnessed her giggling. Where was a camera when he needed one?
He found her bedroom with little help from her. The sweet gunpowdery scent of her apartment was strongest here. He breathed it in, savored it between his teeth, and knew she was already becoming his undoing. He'd always associate the acrid smell with a beautiful woman until the end of his days. It was classic conditioning in its purest form.
Gun.
Woman.
Salivate.
He pushed her lightly and she folded, wet towel boneless into her bed. He followed, unable to pull himself out of the haze of pure shock when she latched onto one of his arms and pulled him down to sit beside her. It didn't escape his notice that they were again in a position that could become compromising in a matter of seconds.
"H-Hawkeye?" He pulled nervously at his collar.
"Hmm?" She began to undo the clip that held her hair in place, "Colonel, what would you name your first child if it was a boy?"
Trepidation gave way to surprise, "You're asking me?"
Her hair tumbled over her shoulders, yellow as pounded gold and crimped from being pinned up, "Yes. I guess I am."
He stuffed his itching fingers in his pockets again, "Thor."
"What?" One of her eyebrows bounced up, "What kind of a name is Thor?"
"A good one," He defended, "I think it's very strong and manly."
"Be that as it may, I am not naming my child Thor," She crinkled her nose and placed a protective hand over her stomach, "It sounds like someone who ought to carry around a big hammer."
He stared at her and tried to sort through the mesh of contradictory thoughts. This was the first time he'd seen her show any sort of affection for her unborn child. He was shaken to the core, both by the beauty of Hawkeye as a mother and by the longing for it to be untrue. Already, she was bonded with her child, whether she realized it or not, and soon her first love and devotion would be for her baby. He knew it was wrong to be jealous, but he didn't want her torn from him. Not yet. He wasn't ready to surrender his place in her world.
Of course, it would be so much different if she was his, and the child was theirs . . .
"I always liked you, Roy," She leaned back, and the sight of her looking up at him with her haunting halo of hair fanned out beneath her was enough to make him forget how inebriated she was. His first name on her lips didn't help, "You weren't like the others . . ."
She sighed and closed her eyes momentarily, as if fighting a memory, "You would never hurt me."
He shook his head, trying to clear the enticing picture she made from his mind, "Never."
There was an unspoken promise in his voice. He wouldn't let anyone else hurt her either. Never again. Always, she had been the one to protect him. She was never vulnerable enough to need any sort of reciprocation on his part, and she never appeared to be anything but fine. He'd always felt weaker, but maybe they were both weak, because of and for each other. This was going to be a liability on the battlefield.
Need. How did one go about explaining the feeling? Need for water. Need for another person. Was this intensity normal?
"From now on," he decided, "We'll look out for each other."
She gave him her best stern look, "I'm supposed to protect you."
"And you do," He stroked her hair, and she smiled like a cat in a patch of sunlight, "You protect me from all things. Even apathy."
She leaned toward him with a murmur, "All things."
She flowed into him, and their mouths touched, so naturally that he didn't realize what was happening until she was kissing him. And more alarming, he was kissing her. She tasted soft and boozy, and he was insatiable. She grabbed his collar and pulled him even closer. He obliged eagerly. Control slipped away into some dark corner of her bedroom and peered out from the shadows. There was a ribbon dipped in liquor threading through his mouth. It was too good to be true for a senseless moment.
But he couldn't. Damn it all, he couldn't take advantage of her intoxication. He wrenched away from her with a groan of frustration, and stood up before he changed his mind. He felt like a very stupid man already. Consciences were such burdensome things.
She looked . . . satisfied? She settled into her pillow and gave him a small, drowsy grin, "Goodnight then."
That was the end of it. She closed her eyes, smile still fixed to her delicious mouth. Relief, admiration and longing dueled for dominance in his mind.
"Goodnight," he whispered.
He found the bathroom and splashed water over his forehead, but his hands still shook as they gripped the sink edge. He wished he could cool off as easily as her. He wished he too had drunk enough to slip gratefully into dreamless sleep. At least then he would stop remembering that kiss.
Only curiosity dimmed his fervor.
The bottles resting on the sink jarred him with a sense of foreboding. He picked one up and studied the side. The drug name on the label meant nothing to him, but the small hand-written note scratched across it meant everything. He sank to the floor with the bottle still in his hands and vowed then and there that she would tell him everything.
In the morning, he was going to make her talk.