Thanks everyone for your reviews and patience :)

Here's some post-canon Royai (involving a bed - looking at you, Transparent Space from soon four years ago xD I still feel so called out there. Btw, looking for the date of when you wrote that, I found a review where you said you looked for a playlist of Royai and I think I found the perfect song for Riza: Hymne à l'amour (Céline Dion's version is the best), because those lyrics are just made for her towards Roy.)

Anyway, hope you'll enjoy!

No clock ticked above the door. His pulse did instead, steady in his ears. Rain softly dabbled against the window. It was thinning out, but the cars still rushed through streams down the streets and the manhole covers gurgled in their struggle to swallow it all.

Roy sat in a chair he wanted to kick for being so uncomfortable, his back to the room. He stared at the white wall; at those tiny black blobs that refused to improve in acuity no matter how much he narrowed his eyes.

"I'm sorry, General," Dr Marcoh shattered the silence.

Roy said nothing. He forced himself to focus, to see like he always had for another painful moment of denial. It was stupid really – denial, indenting the letters to close to him with his glare – but it hurt more to accept reality. His hands clenched into fists. Pain shot up his arms, even though the scars on his hands had fully healed years ago.

Briefly, he shut his eyes. Useless.

"Thank you, Dr Marcoh." Roy stood. He didn't want to hear another apology, so he held out his hand. He could practically feel the apology anyway, pity seeping through the looser-than-usual handshake. "I am of course still content to fund any further research in the field," Roy said for the umpteenth time.

"Thank you, General. I will be sure to keep that in mind," Dr Marcoh croaked. A polite dismissal but a dismissal nonetheless. Roy buried his hands in depths of his coat's pockets.

There would be no further research, he knew as he stepped out onto the street. Dr Marcoh had done all he could. Leaving without a subsequent appointment drove the point home.

No new appointment…

Disgruntled, Roy trudged on. The rain had almost stopped, but he had to mind the puddles that waited for cars to spray him. Not that it could ruin his day anymore than already, he bitterly thought. The whole weekend was spoiled, as well as the coming week and every other week after that. Every single one. Weeks where he already foresaw the glances his team exchanged – concerned glances – with him squinting at his paperwork in frustration.

He didn't want their pity. He didn't want the attention at all, he wanted things to be back to the way they had always been. At least another ten successful sessions with Dr Marcoh so that he could pretend that his eyes were only tired and dry from a lack of sleep but otherwise perfect.

And they were. Long range, at least. So why not in close proximity? Why was the Truth allowed to cheat him, even when he had traded innocent souls to retrieve his eyesight?

Alkahestry, he remembered. Perhaps that young princess from Xing would find a way to restore what the Truth's cruel trade had engendered. Slow the process down like his temporary blindness was now speeding it up. That had to be it. Madame Christmas didn't need glasses. His parents had died young, but up until then, they hadn't needed glasses either. And neither would he!

Roy winced when with a splash, his foot stomped right into a puddle. Cold, dirty water soaked his shoe, sock and the hem of his trousers. With a disgusted shudder, he shook it out. "Bloody rain," he cursed, "bloody eyes." With every step, his foot squelched and his brow creased into an angry and angrier frown. A single footprint now pursued his fiery march.

The keys clinked and slipped through his fingers. Roy growled as he rattled open the door to his flat. He hadn't had plans for the weekend, but now he wasn't even looking forward to that promise of peace and quiet. Nothing could lift his spirits, nothing. Before he could contemplate something, anything to do that would at least not dampen them further, claws padded down the hall.

The lights were on. Grey‑snouted and wagging his tail, Hayate happily sniffed Roy in greeting.

Roy's ire momentarily fogged into surprise. He toed off his shoes. His hand found the doorframe out of blind habit and he somewhat swung himself around the corner into the living room.

"Captain."

She was sitting on the couch – the old, dark green tweeded thing. Fuzzily-slippered feet on the edge of the coffee table and with a book cradled in her lap, Riza looked up from behind the rims of her glasses.

"Welcome back." She smiled. As if it was the most common thing in the world. As if the laws were abandoned and his dreams of living together with her had finally come true.

Still, she was there now. She had used her key – a far more seldom occurrence than him using the copy of her apartment's key. He adamantly told himself that she hardly did so because the chances of him showing up at her place were too high.

There was a spark in her eyes. Roy felt an odd twinge in the pit of his stomach. Not yet anger again, but—

"Why are you wearing those?"

"These?" She slid the black‑framed glasses all the way up the bridge of her nose. They had no lenses. "I wanted to."

"You wanted to wear glasses?"

Did she know?

Riza shut her book. A mere setup, he reckoned. "Do you remember that time I posed as that corrupt banker's new secretary?"

"Yes," Roy answered slowly.

"Or how I broke Fuery's glasses when we hunted a homunculus? He gave them to me – Fuery."

Just what was she up to?

Roy didn't like the levity in her tone. He didn't like that he didn't seem capable of adapting it. He should have been overjoyed with her presence, but then she just had to ruin it. "And so you decided to wear them because…?"

"Because I like the way they look. It takes some getting used to," she wiggled her nose meaningfully, "but if I have to wear them confidently for another mission, I'd rather do it in private first."

Roy narrowed his eyes. She must have concluded whatever speech she had prepared, because she neither pressured him to reply, nor attempted to pad the silence stretching between them. A hint—she must have dropped one, giving him time to think. And Roy did think, though rather about the way she was watching him calmly with not even a trace of teasing or curiosity.

A flicker of irritation stung between his brows. His shoulders fell. "How long have you known?"

Her gaze mellowed. "I called Jean earlier. He said you guys were going to the gym like every second Saturday." She set her feet on the ground, leaned down and produced his fraying gym shoes from their main residence under the couch.

Roy sucked in a wordless curse. Havoc had done nicely to cover for him, even without knowing what secretive operations Roy was actually up to. Having kindly excused all of the previous Saturday appointments though, Havoc had unknowingly tipped Riza off. In the very least, the repetitiveness – the rest, she must have figured out on her own.

Still looking for an answer that wasn't oozing venom and spite at mostly himself, Roy didn't register how Riza got up until her palms were planted flatly on his chest. His heart skipped a beat against them. A justified one, he soon found out.

Nails lightly, ticklishly taking the lead, her hands ran down his chest and to his belt which she promptly unbuckled. The sound, so sudden and bold, tingled in his ears.

"It's best to change out of something wet," she said, voice huskier than he would have dared imagine. "We wouldn't want you to catch a cold."

"No," Roy rasped. He awkwardly cleared his throat.

Naturally, he knew that the chances of catching a cold from a wet ankle were close to zero. Ridiculous even. But who was he to correct her? Riza was often right about the littlest things, and so he didn't complain.

He didn't manage to grasp so much as a single coherent thought when her lips latched on to his neck. She started right off with a pricking, ardent suckle that was remedied quickly with a flick of her tongue. Roy grinned. He knew what she was doing. What he did not know was why.

The last time she had done it, Roy had taken an old school friend out for dinner to catch up. Though funny and smart, the woman hadn't been his date; at least he hadn't considered her as such. Riza apparently had. For another two weeks afterwards, Roy had had to endure the looks at work where his collar had done a poor job of hiding Riza's almost territorial mark.

She had more in common with her dog than she cared to admit. Jealously was at the top of that list.

Having seen to the zipper where Roy's trousers had become uncomfortably tight, Riza's hands continued their tour up and under his shirt with just as much vigour. He briefly wondered if she would bother going to the bedroom at all. He hoped she would, his last encounter with a rather protective Hayate coming to mind.

His train of thoughts braked abruptly when something landed on his nose. Roy frowned.

Taking his hands, Riza walked them backwards down a well‑trodden path. Roy had to step out of his trousers, taking the foreign and completely unwanted frame of glasses off his nose.

"Leave them on," she told him as he closed the door of the bedroom behind them. He wasn't sure why anymore – the darn glasses had masterfully killed the mood. "They suit you."

Roy scoffed. He wanted to fling them away. No lenses could be shattered anymore, and so he decided to keep a solid grip on them, somewhere she couldn't snatch them away and set them back on his nose.

"I'd never wear something like this," Roy sneered at the crude synthetic frame.

Riza plopped herself onto his bed and opened the drawer to the nightstand.

Any and all taunts were wiped off his face, because what?

Staring back at him, also missing lenses, were more pairs of glasses. All sorts of them.

Roy blinked himself out of his bafflement, his attention needed elsewhere when he registered the way Riza had shuffled towards the headboard. Leaning against it, drawing her knees towards herself, she even had the audacity to cross her ankles most fetchingly. Meaningfully. The slippers had been left behind. Now her feet were clad in nothing but stockings, see‑through, fine meshed, shiny. Her first and middle finger took a pointed stroll down the buttons lining the side of her skirt.

Roy swallowed. Tights or stockings? Stocking, right? He loved stockings. Tights were good too, but stockings! Laced stockings, ending at the thighs, inviting to be left on as the sole item of clothing. Maybe those buttons she was fingering out of the buttons of her skirt were open far enough, he could shove the fabric up, skip to the good part. His crotch certainly agreed, wet‑hot and throbbing. His palms oozed with eager sweat.

By the time Riza had popped the buttons open until just above her calf, she stopped.

Roy waited. So did she. He closed his treacherous mouth, dry and watery at the same time. It took another moment to tear his gaze off her hand, the hope of it continuing its journey burning brightly in the form of goosebumps lining his arms. But— but his question! His hopes for stockings!

She smiled. He only groaned.

Her gaze didn't even have to dart to the innocently inviting range the drawer offered, nor to the black frame in his hand.

"This is dumb."

She didn't move. Fingers hovered.

Roy barely suppressed another groan as he dragged himself towards the nightstand. With a little more force than necessary, he slammed the pair of glasses onto the wooden surface. He didn't want them; he didn't want any at all, ever.

Her thumb caught on another button, freeing the first centimetre of thigh. Oh, those beloved thighs. Roy's eyes darted sideways with a mind of their own. He swallowed thickly. She froze again. His lips crumpled unhappily.

And so he considered the glasses in the drawer for the first time.

Aimlessly, he rifled through them. From the corner of his eye, he saw Riza's hand wander up higher, and good lord, was she wearing a suspender belt?

Roy picked out a random pair with growing haste. He fumbled to open the temples, then halted just before it could sit on his nose. Half-moon spectacles. Like Grumman's. They almost made him laugh. He tutted derogatively instead, as if he'd found a bone in his fish and spit it into the dirt.

Putting the spectacles back, Roy contemplated a pair with zero frame next. It had lenses for obvious reasons, but he assumed they were nothing but dioptre‑free glass. The thin nickel temples twisted easily between his thumb and index finger as he regarded them this way and that. Nickel, or perhaps an alloy of it? The alchemist's section of his brain demanded him to find out.

The glasses were… not half bad. He didn't want them to stick out, but he also didn't want to look even a month older than he truly was. They rejoined the others shortly, more softly than Fuery's had.

More pairs waited for him at the back of the drawer, making themselves noticeable only when clanked against with the ones at the front. Roy wasn't aware of the way he sunk onto the side of the bed, absentmindedly ploughing over each pair until he found one he liked most yet didn't like. Thin, roundish, unremarkable. He held it for a while, looking at it.

When her hands appeared on his shoulders, tenderly, he allowed a sigh.

"They really do suit you."

"I still don't want them." It came out less sharply than he had expected. His shoulders slumped readily under her ministrations, tired from their own stubbornness.

Her lips softly met his cheek. "A constant reminder," she sadly agreed. The tunnels, the Truth, the months of blindness. Up and down, the pads of her fingers warmed the drooping muscles of his neck. "I thought maybe if you had a different association with wearing them, you wouldn't mind so much."

"And this is what you came up with?"

Riza blushed. Her head retreated, but her hands never left; never ceased drawing soothing circles.

The corner of his mouth tugged up into a lopsided smirk. "Seeing you sprawled out in lingerie on my bed every time I wear them?"

"That would be fraternising, sir."

He laughed this time. She smiled too, winding her arms around him from behind.

"It's not even the reminder, only…" Roy suppressed another sigh. "I suppose I'm just that vain."

"About how you see yourself?"

"Mostly others," he said, not realising to have stepped one foot into her trap again. She could be merciless when she wanted him to see through her eyes. More than once, those drastic measures had been his saving grace (and more than once, they had been every bit as fraternising as she now soberly called them illegal).

"Someone in particular?" she insisted, almost innocently. Almost.

Roy's grin came back to life. "You're playing dirty."

"Well, I was until a minute ago." The random patters she painted were not limited to his shoulders, her thumbs tasting where she hugged him across his chest.

Roy took one of her hands. He leaned back and into her, and she understood, shuffling away enough for his head to rest in her lap. His free hand rose, the glasses he held twirling this way and that.

"I was thinking that I might try – now that I have to – to get glasses… like—" His tongue felt heavy just pressing against the backs of his teeth. "Like Hughes'."

"He would have loved to have you aboard," Riza gently said.

"I know." Roy pulled a face at the thought of his best friend pestering him about glasses all the time like he had about finding himself a wife. Roy's heart ached just the same, missing him terribly.

Riza stroked unruly hair away from his forehead. It was rare that he didn't slick it back these days. "They're only for reading, right?"

"So far," Roy grumbled.

"It will look very sophisticated." She made the mistake of leaning down to kiss him.

With a squeak and what might have become a reflex to permanently neuter him, Riza found herself on her back. Roy's eyes shone triumphantly at her from behind an empty titanium frame. Shyly. Meaningfully. She returned his smirk, rewarding his obedience by hiking up her leg to hook onto his equally bare one. He had forgotten about his scattered trousers in the living room.

The garter belt was divine. She always was, every centimetre of her, and yet, Roy felt there was something different. Her eyes shone just a little warmer and her hips rocked a little mellower in time with his, as if she couldn't shake rewarding him with a kind smile even in the heat of the moment.

She was proud he trusted her that she wouldn't find the glasses silly, and it made him proud in turn – proud that he had seen it through. Proud that he had someone who cared so much, whom he could shower in appreciation and pleasure as a thank you.

She chose the nickel ones afterwards. Making a show of just how attractive glasses could look, Riza slid the end of the temple between her lips, tapped her chin with it. She put the glasses on and took them off whenever half‑heartedly leafing through a sheet of paperwork or two – all naked, safe for the stockings, as per his request – and Roy would watch where he was propped up on his side, imitating her unknowingly with his pair, just as naked.

It wasn't until she returned to straddling his thigh that he agreed just how much more powerful that look could be from behind the rims of cursed glasses.