Title: You Drew Stars Around my Scars, but Now I'm Bleeding
Day: Whumptober 2023, Day 27
Prompt: "You drew stars around my scars; but now I'm bleeding" Matches/Scars/ "Let me see"
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Word Count: 852
Author: aquietwritingcorner/realitybreakgirl
Rating: T
Characters: Riza Hawkeye
Warning: Near-death
Summary: Riza Hawkeye always wondered how her father's obsession with Flame Alchemy started. She didn't have to wonder about Roy's. He told her. But even as she's bleeding, not quite aware of what's going on around her, she reflects on how Roy's focus on it was different.
Notes: Yeah, I really don't know. I just went with things. I'm tired.
You Drew Stars Around my Scars, but Now I'm Bleeding
Sometimes, Riza wondered how it started. Was it a single spark? A match? Did that mature into a fire in a hearth? A campfire? A house blaze? Did he look at it with fear? With wonder? With awe? With desire? What was it that had so enraptured and enthralled him that he decided to focus on Flame Alchemy? Riza had always wondered. But she had also been too afraid to ask.
She had been too afraid to ask her father about it. At the best of times her father was mildly tolerant and somewhat receptive to her questions. She had to catch him in the right mood, and ask only certain questions, but she had been able to wheedle information out of him that way. Some questions she didn't even try to ask. But that one? He might have answered it, if she had been bold enough.
Yet, she hadn't, and so she was forever left wondering what started him down the path of Flame Alchemy to the point that he would spend a year tattooing his teenage daughter with the secrets of it.
(She'd thought of the stories that the stars told while he did it, trying to distract herself, trying to pretend that, instead of her father tattooing her with his secrets, perhaps she was caught up in one of the myths of the sky)
However, her father wasn't the only one that she had never asked that question of. She'd never asked it of Roy, either. She'd never asked him what had drawn him to Flame Alchemy. However, unlike her father, she'd never asked Roy because she knew. She knew what had brought him to chase after Flame Alchemy. She knew, because he told her. Not because she had to seek it out, but because he chose to tell her.
And then, unlike her father, he told her what he wanted to do with it. He told her how he wanted to help people. He wanted to end wars, to protect their country, to make sure that they could rise to the top. He wanted to learn to use it in non-combatant ways as well, like in use for construction or farming, or even in stopping out-of-control fires. He'd told her all that he wanted to do with it. Even after he had burned her and left scars behind, he had still wanted to help people.
(She'd thought of the stories that the stars told then, too, only this time, when she was crying in pain, Roy had held her, tracing around her burns, and repeating the stories of the stars to her, or telling her ones from other lands. In the ensuing years, when her scars would hurt, he'd trace around them again and tell her the stories once more, until it felt like he was tracing the very stars around her scars.)
Riza supposed that she should have asked others that desired Flame Alchemy what drew them to it. Was it the status? The power? Jealousy? Did they think they would steal it? Keep it? Master it? Did they even have the first clue as to what went into Flame Alchemy? The variables? The calculations? The adjustments? No, she had never asked why specific individuals had wanted Flame Alchemy.
She should have. It might have helped her predict things better. It might have let her be prepared. It might have kept her safer. But she hadn't asked, and had, in some ways, been too afraid to. It felt as if asking those questions would put her too close to the danger, leave her too vulnerable. She should have asked them, though. If she had, perhaps her scars wouldn't be bleeding now.
(She'd tried to think of the stories of the stars while they looked at her back, peeling back scar tissue to determine if maybe the missing parts were underneath it, felt the pressure of a sharp pin on paper on her back, and tried to remember what it felt like when Roy traced the stars around her scars.)
Riza heard voices more than saw people, read the panic in tones more than paid attention to words, and felt the vibrations more than looked to see who was coming.
"Riza?"
She didn't move, and instead laid there, with her eyes half open. She could feel his hands on her, feel his demands to let him see what her wound looked like. She could hear his voice, although she couldn't make out the words. She could feel his hands reaching to soothe her more than hear him. And even though her eyes were mostly closed, she could see blurs of movement more than she could tell what was going on.
Riza closed her eyes and dreamed of the stories in the stars. They were beautiful stars, weren't they? She only hoped that Roy could see them, too.
When Riza woke up, it was to the smell of crisp hospital sheets, the sound of a story being told and a familiar hand tracing the stars around her scars again. She smiled. She knew he could see the stars too.