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: 046. All Night Vigil / Sleepless Night

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Disclaimer: If I owned Full Metal Alchemist, Alphonse would be dating Scar.

Angles

046. All Night Vigil / Sleepless Night

Roy was one of the worst of men.

Though he liked to think it was not his fault. He blamed Master Hawkeye, cruel and violent. He blamed the war, sickening and destructive. He blamed Riza. Because really, even with all the things that came before her, she was the thing that made him so terrible. She was a delicious temptation, dangled in front of his face, ready for tasting and looking delectable with such plump lips which were as red as juicy apples when she bit into them with her front teeth. She could show him everything he wanted, and make it always just slightly out of reach every single day of his life. She was a sin without name, and twice as cruel as any of them. They could cut and slice, they could slit and kill, but she would rot him from the inside like a slow acting poison. She would creep into his body and control his heart in an instant.

"Can I sleep here?" He whispered into her letterbox, for the two hundredth and sixth time (he had counted each time, knowing it was enough of their lives but not really caring) and heard her breathe out, letting out only a small insignificant noise of complaint before he heard a clang of small chains flipping to hit the door, the sound of her opening the door. The door opened, and he fell backwards unto the floor, breathing in the smell of Riza that the apartment was cloaked in. She kicked him gently, his signal to move. He shot up immediately, without even asking where he was staying. He already knew.

"Why do you even ask?" Riza said as he collapsed into her plush cream sofa. She always kept it clean, the pillows puffed up and comfy. But he would come along and change it all, crashing into it and crumpling the entire thing into a mess in an instant. But she never complained. Instead it would take her five minutes to excuse herself, grab a bundle of blankets and the like and lumber them on his body as he curled into a ball and closed his eyes. Then she would give him the look, her gorgeous eyes lingering on him as she smiled a little before leaving the room for bed. Her nights were filled only with innocent intentions. Unlike him, even if she never knew. Not even in his more desperate times.

Then the nights when he still could not sleep, not even with her natural smell surrounding him, more comforting and softer than she liked to act, he would see the real Riza Hawkeye. Clambering into her bedroom, he would slide unto the bed next to her. Despite the fact the sheets were wound around her body, keeping her warm, he would never bring the covers she gave him. Instead, he would hold on to her, in those sleepless nights. Sometimes she would already have slid into slumber, her eyes closed tight and breathing ever so gently. Then on other nights, she would still be awake. On those nights he had to try the hardest. He could not whisper the desires, the half-truths, tell her everything she wanted to hear. Not even he could believe them. But there was one thing he would whisper.

"I love you." He would mutter, in that way that just made Roy himself. She would not reply, and she never said anything about it, and he knew she never accepted it. He could tell her a hundred, no, a thousand, even a million times, and she would never believe it. Riza had never really believed in anything but him. So because he had always told her, never shown her, he knew it. He was making it feel like nothing, this strange relationship they had. He had never kissed her. Not once. Yes, he really was the worst of men. Or maybe, by not trying to force her to love him, he was something else entirely. Something she never said to him. In her eyes, he was the best of men.

Roy was the man she loved.

I do not like this one in the slightest. The end was drab.

Preview: She finally understood what Maes had meant when he told her that it was hard to understand human imperfection.

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