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: 065. The You Reflected In The Glass
Dedication: kausingkayn, thank you!
Disclaimer: If I owned Full Metal Alchemist, Roy would be the little matchstick girl.
Angles
065. The You Reflected In The Glass
It takes her years to build herself up.
What little wisdom Roy possesses goes into tearing down her walls before she even realises what is happening. She had concrete foundations, of that she was sure. Except he had helped her make it, and his mixture had not been the same as her bitterness. Whatever went into creating with her was not what she wished for, but rather dust from his heavy heart that he had half bothered to throw her way.
Now, she is pulling the stability from underneath him and hoping for everything to crumble around her. She is carving into the breakable earth, laughing in the face of her dead father. He wanted her to be inhuman. He wanted her not to feel, not to cry when he scorched her skin, to stay away from his student other than to give him the research that was always more important. Sometimes, she wonders how long it will be until he falls too.
"Riza, I know who you really are." He tells her once, staring in the mirror as he stands behind her. His hand is resting on her shoulder, and in a different time she could have shrugged it off. But that companionship almost felt safe. He knows then that she builds things up just so she can tear them down, and that she likes to watch herself pull things apart. A long time ago, her father would pull the cracking wings off butterflies and tell her that he never used to be malicious. But in this life, he would whisper; there is no room for remorse.
"You think a looking-glass tells you that?" Her whole heart screams from under her sharply painted ribs, where it is untouchable and unable to break. It wants to be kind, and in one world where there is a Hawkeye who shows emotion to anyone but Roy, it is screeching for someone to teach her how to or love or anything. She does not want to be the one who enjoys watching people cave in, even if she does enjoy being the strong one.
"No. I think the you reflected in the glass tells me there is no saving us from falling." Roy whispers, and her heart thumps so hard against her chest she finds herself wishing she knew how to breathe the same way he did. In a way that when she inhaled, tears did not want to cascade from her eyes and when she exhaled she would be breathing out the litter of her memories that would break down into nothing but dirt to birth fruit over time. Whilst he stood making it look so simple, it made her want to be the one who broke instead.
"You are only the best I have ever had." She tells him, reaching for the eyelash curler and it is then she thinks that he almost believes her. But she has an uneven heartbeat, and in a replay of this moment she supposes she will hear her own heart break in the silence that follows for a few minutes after her lie.
"When you mean that, I will tell you then." He buries his face in her hair, because he has known since the age of ten that it makes her feel a little less alone. He knew at twelve that she wore her musty perfume her mother left her after she died, because once upon a time it was not blackened flesh that smelt like home. At fifteen he left her with eyes so cold they could stop a heart, and any day after when they meet he knows they will. It is only now, at the respective ages of twenty eight and thirty something that when he leaves she cries.
In all those years, she had never felt so in love.
Because Hawkeye is very unemotional, apart from when Roy does something and because for all the millions of people in the world the only one each will ever want will be each other. I just know it. Do you not know that, too?
Preview: He knows that hearts speak. Their voices are just muffled, a lot of the time.
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