Sorry this is SUPER DUPER late, I had forgotten that I signed up to do extra secret santas and had made a bunch of plans after the holidays but here it is! Hope you like it~
Dearest @softweab i am Your Fullmetal secret santa! I am truly sorry for being late. All i hope is You will love this fic, dedicated to You and everyone else who loves Roy and Riza. @fullmetalsecretsanta
Their first winter together is stiff and silent - like a suffering.
Their first winter together is stiff and silent - like a suffering. The vast coldness of the ancient Hawkeye mansion and the old Berthold envelops, suffocates them. She wakes up early to tiptoe barefoot to the fireplace only to find he is there, reading, and the fire is rattling the room, spreading its warmth. He looks up, smiles a half smile, a mockery; “See I am not as selfish as you thought”. Tired and suprised may she be; but her features are regal in this light and the facade swallows a lot of emotions. The apprentice Mustang has known Miss Hawkeye for almost eight month. Roy admires Riza.
Their third winter is wondrous and warm - like hot liquid after staying out in the cold for too long. After making dinner and serving tea, the father retires to his room and Roy sweeps her off her feet, kisses her lightly and then deeply and all over her body. He is clumsy and sloppy with his mouth, much to her dismay. "Pay attention, Mister" Riza chides, her teeth flash white in the dark of the kitchen and Roy is falling, falling, falling for and with and by and into the center, into the soul of this sad-eyed, all-tender girl. They both know he acts sloppy because in any other case, he might say something so stupid, something so forbidden, something so emotional that would break them here and now. Riza is sixteen and Roy is eighteen and they dare not form love with their mouth.
(By the next winter, he is learning how to shoot a gun. Snow colors the Academy, it makes the scenery a fairytale. She spends that same winter passing out from the pain, her vision white and black. The red on her back stains each bed sheet she owns.)
Their fourth winter together is dry and bloody - like their own broken body. Ishval knows no relief. As if a madman, he runs back and forth from his and her tent, creating excuses and making scenarios in his head where this did not happen. Only it already has. Roy still carries idealism like a halo and she guides him back to sanity by choking on her own words; the insults and the anger sit behind fatigue and self-hate in her earth-eyes. "I can make this right." He swears, hands on his chest. Eyes do not meet eyes. She checks her rifle, movements precise and wonted. Her voice rings clear. "Just make it worth it". He looks at her back as she walks away to kill. Feels his stomach drop and his eyes fail, because he loves her and he wants her and even the notion of this is empty. Riza is eighteen and a half, Roy is a little bit over twenty.
Their tenth winter is tidy and trimmed - like the tree in the corner of the office, decorated by Fuery and Havoc. The two of them stay in late, sharing work he shunned away far too long and eating the last of the fruit bread he made as a whim. She yawns and it is so humane, something she only allows him to see and it melts him, this simple window into her state of mind. It is late, and they are alone and for the first time in his life Roy realizes he is greedy (ambition is, in a way, a kind of greed, but it does not hit quite that close to home). He is greedy for more. More time with her. More seeing her. More. "Let's go, Lieutenant." he says quietly. She nods, a small smile on her lips and it is more than enough. Roy is twenty seven years old and she is soon to be twenty five.
Their thirteenth winter is a frenzy - just like Easty city after Edward Elric managed to abrade two smaller streets in the most populated area within the town. They cannot get a break these days, soon to be transferred to central. On the way to the spot of the incident, Roy almost gets a heart attack by mistaking the snow on his head with grey hairs. Riza laughs so loudly at this she needs to stop the car, the engine and everything. She has tears in her eyes and he would feel insulted if it wasn't for the rare, the precious sight of her laughter. "It is easy for you, Lieutenant, being young and bea-" She silences him by leaning in, reaching for his face and caressing the snow off his hair and neck and uniform. It makes his breath hitch and her heart quicken and they are both blushing. He is thirty one years old, she is twenty eight and a half. They act like teenagers around each other.
The fourteenth winter is black - like the grief they feel. He comes to her flat, loud and harsh and brash. Face red from the cold and the booze, he practically crashes through her door, wearing the fakest smile one could wear. "Sir - " she tries to reason but he wants none of it and leans in very close, swaying. He is not smiling anymore, but is serious. "Riza. My name is Roy." His eyes are huge, black spots in his sickwhite face. "Say my name" he whispers. "Pleaspleaseplease - " It is a line he would not dare to cross when sober, but they understand each other so well without looks, through the facades that she can sense rather than see or hear the desperation in his eyes and his voice. So they kiss. The kiss turns to an embrace and the embrace to fumbling and the fumbling to lovemaking and the passion of it is almost overbearing, as if they could breathe again; and although it is dark, Riza can see the outline of his face, contorted and focused and so, so, so sad. He is tracing her back, the scars that bore her to life. It feels like a lifetime ago. When he comes, his voice cracks on her name and she holds him tight through it all, shattering in her own way. She feels the tears on her neck and knows that now, now the healing can begin. Hughes has been dead for two weeks.
(Their sixteenth winter is spent apart. He catches her on the corridors sometimes, next to the ominous presence of the Fuhrer and, as if sensing his presence, her shoulders slacken a bit. He bits his tongue to prevent his mouth from shouting her name.)
Their twenty-fifth winter is bright and vast - like hope. People do not dare to cross her path as she makes her way to him and she is screaming, which she never ever does - "They made you Fuhrer President." He has not time or energy to stand up, his legs are jelly but her eyes are shining; she is weeping with joy. Roy is forty four years old, his hair is greying at the temples, her face is kissed with light wrinkles around her mouth for she is smiling more nowadays.
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It is spring when she takes his hands into her ragged ones, softly. Kisses them, mouthes "thank you" and with a straight back and clear eyes she marches before the firing squad. Roy is fifty one years old.
"The power of one man doesn't amount to much. But with whatever little strength I'm capable of, I'll do everything humanly possible to protect the people I love, and in turn they'll protect the ones they love. It seems like the least we tiny humans can do for each other." (insp.) (Greed ver.)
some Team Mustang for my Secret Santa, @2ndltbraeda!! ♥
“If one wishes to gain something, one must present something of equal value. This is the concept of equivalent exchange, the fundamental basis of alchemy.”
The Golden Trio feat. equivalent exchange for my Secret Santa, @bbbbbbbbbbblow!! ♥
