There are scratches in the entrance floorboards. They're the first thing Riza notices as she steps through the doorway—small, evenly-spaced gouges where a worn old rug used to sit. It was an accidental gift, left behind when the previous tenant abandoned it in their haste to leave. The dusty old thing is still there. It had been rumpled up and kicked aside, and now sits folded into itself in a lumpy heap on the off-white kitchen tile. The shape reminds her of those nasty, flavorless sugar ribbons her childhood neighbors would send around the winter holidays.
Riza wrinkles her nose, her heart sinking just a bit. It was nice of her neighbor to let him back in, but how long had Hayate been alone in here before Rebecca had been able to come and get him? And with everything that had happened, how long had it been before she’d even thought to ask her about him? He'd come home after everything, just like she'd taught him. Poor thing must have been worried sick about her, about everyone. She'll have to spoil him a little after Rebecca drops him off tomorrow. A lot, even.
She lets out a weary sigh as she drops her old duffel bag from her shoulder to the kitchen counter. It lands with a dull thud, deflating into itself much like her rumpled entrance mat. She massages a twinge out of the injured side of her neck, taking care to avoid the still healing tissue that had until just a few days ago been held together with stitches. With the toe of her boot, she slides the dirty old rug back over to its home in front of the door. The flooring is sh*tty old wood, she doesn't care about the damage. Besides, she's sure she can argue she helped stop the end of the world when it's time to get back the security deposit.
The rest of her apartment is quiet, still. Everything feels the same as she left it, minus the stale air and the layer of dust that’s surely built up on every open surface while she's been recovering in the hospital. A line of golden mid-afternoon sunshine pours in from the window on the far wall, cleanly bisecting her living room straight through to the back wall of her tiny kitchen. She stands for a moment, watching dust motes float in and out of the column of light.
She should probably clean, do laundry, and put her clothes away. If she’s being honest, she'd rather die.
It's what she should have done anyway, isn't it? Downstairs there are teams of men—some military, most volunteer—still searching for any remains of those who hadn’t survived the Promised Day. She passed a few of them on her way up as they searched an apartment a few floors down. One of them recognized and saluted her. She responded in kind, stiff and formal, but her heart wasn't in it. They’d have to finish the search quickly with summer just around the corner, he’d told her, otherwise there wouldn’t be much searching left to do. His tone had been light, but the thought brought bitter bile up in her throat.
Now, standing in front of the window in her own apartment, the same nausea bubbles uncomfortably behind her sternum. She's no stranger to death. Not one to shy away from the thought of her own either. Why is she standing here breathing in musty air, and not the kind old man a few floors down? He probably never took a life. What gives her the right?
She huffs another sigh, flexing her fingers out of a tight fist, before moving to properly throw open the curtains. There's no stopping the whirl of dust that cascades toward her. She covers her face as best she can, waving it away with a flick of her wrist. The window sticks a little in the same spot it always does, but it’s no match for her, even after a few weeks laid up in a very uncomfortable hospital bed. A slight breeze ambles in as if it had been waiting for her, carrying with it sun-warmed spring air, the scent of flowers and grass and hot asphalt and car exhaust. Maybe a little bit of the alley trash, too. She lifts her face to it, closing her eyes against the sunlight as the breeze softly brushes her hair from her face. It’s as close to a “Welcome home” as she’ll get.
The fresh air tamps down her nausea just a bit. Maybe she'll call Rebecca anyway—see if she can drop Hayate off tonight instead. She'll sleep better if he's here. He’ll sleep better, too.
She can’t help the next sigh that escapes her, fully aware that she’s been doing it too much these past few days. It’s the calm air bringing her back to the old habits she built as a child in that dusty old country house. Things lurk and listen in the quiet stillness—she learned that early. So, you sigh into the dead air of the room, announce yourself to the ghosts. You haunt this place, too, but you are still made of flesh and bone and your heart pumps hot blood through your veins and your lungs still take in the dusty air just as easily as they can puff it out in a sigh. And all of that flesh and bone and blood was made to work. She learned that lesson early, too.
Idle hands, Riza. The chiding voice is almost her father's, but not quite. Over the years, she’s replaced his voice with her own—plastered over those holes in her memory with a voice infinitely more capable of cruelty. But is it cruelty if it’s the truth, Riza?
She takes in one more big, deep breath of outside air, savoring the lingering scent of grass before turning back into her now slightly-less-musty living room. Might as well put her clothes away, at least. The dusting can wait.
Riza flicks on the old radio by her bookshelf. There's a short moment of dead air before it buzzes to life, flooding the room with harsh, fuzzy static. She smacks it once, twice with the palm of her hand. It sputters. She hits it again, this time in the sweet spot that usually brings in her favorite jazz station. After a few seconds, the forlorn wail of a tinny trumpet and a deep, slow bassline replace the static, following her as she gathers up her old duffel from the kitchen counter and shuffles unceremoniously into her bedroom.
Everything looks as she left it in here, too—linen curtains neatly drawn, closet door rolled slightly open, bed immaculately made. She throws open the window on the far wall, letting the diffuse afternoon light and fresh air bring some life back into her sparsely decorated place. Outside air rushes in, long inhale curling around her frame and pulling itself deeper into the recesses of her apartment.
It’s—well, she didn’t miss it exactly—but the sight of her own space after so long nearly brings tears to her eyes. Her pillows and her mother's patched-up old quilt have never looked so inviting.
Another sigh.
The laundry can wait, actually. She drops the duffel again, hears it land as her head hits her pillow. It’s softer than she remembered and her mattress is perfectly firm—the way it should be.
Fine, she can admit to herself that she missed it. Maybe just a little.
She rolls over, stretching her arms above her head in a way she hadn’t dared in the hospital. It feels luxurious. Here in her own space, she can be fully present in her body, feel the pull and delicious burn of an overlong stretch. She still has to be careful—any slight movement in the wrong direction causes the muscles in her neck and shoulders to seize and stiffen. Even with the exercises the physical therapist recommended, it will take some time to get back to her full range of motion. But she’s glad she can stretch out like this—alone—free from the constant coming and going of doctors and nurses and the rest of the team.
It’s strange, being alone after so long, having no work for the afternoon. She's not supposed to be back in the office until the end of the week—not even supposed to check in with the team again until tomorrow. Mandatory light duty, they had said. More paperwork is what she had heard. The only silver lining is that she and the Colonel are both in the same boat. More paperwork for both of them. Nobody ever thinks about the bureaucratic nightmare that comes after saving the world.
She can admit she looks forward to it. She and the Colonel could use the rest.
But until then, how does one fill that idle time? She could take a nap, but those inevitably lead to bad dreams. Besides, the couple a few units down are fighting—very, very loudly. She feels her lips curl up into a smile despite the annoyance. The world almost ended a few weeks ago, but here they are, still fighting about whatever it is they’re always fighting about.
Riza stretches her arms above her head again, ignoring the pop of her joints as the tension releases between her shoulders. It really does feel good. Laid out like this, she understands why Hayate stretches and rolls on his back so much. More often than not he falls asleep that way, usually in a nice spot of sunlight, his tongue lolling lopsided out of his open mouth before the weight of his gangly legs tips him over onto his side.
She's reconsidering the nap when the neighbors start up again. “Maybe I'll go stay with my mother,” the husband yells.
“Yeah? Well, maybe you shoulda married her instead!” the wife lobs right back. There's a crash—something hitting the wall. Riza winces, sighs again. So it’s going to be one of those nights. Part of her wants to ask them if they’ll at least close their windows.
She'll shower instead. Wash the antiseptic hospital smell off of her skin and replace it with the familiar warmth of her sandalwood shampoo, turn her freshly stretched joints to soup under the hot water. Then she'll call Rebecca and grab Hayate. Maybe even grab some takeout—the Cretan place a few blocks away might be nice. It's one of her and the Colonel’s favorites.
As the shower sputters to life, she definitely doesn't consider calling the Colonel and inviting him over to share dinner. He was released from the hospital a few days ago and they've spoken on the phone every day since; she spoke to him on the phone just this morning, but after months apart and then weeks spent in a room together she feels his absence almost like a loss of limb.
She shakes the thought of dinner invitations from her head, stepping into the hot water and wincing only slightly when the first drops hit scar tissue. It's too hot and also not hot enough, never hot enough. She coils her arms around herself, rests her forehead against the cool tile as the room and her lungs fill with steam.
She can't call. She won’t. Getting Hayate back will be enough for today. She'll get the takeout, get him a nice treat, and they'll take the long way home through the park so he can look at the squirrels if he wants to. She can call the Colonel tomorrow. They'll discuss reconstruction. She’ll throw herself into work, into their plans for the future. And she definitely won't let her mind wander to that first night she'd been fully lucid in the hospital.
She closes her eyes tight against the beat of the hot water against her face and shakes her head, trying to banish the memory even as it comes rushing back to her.
-
It was late at night. Early morning, maybe - she couldn't be too sure, having been in a medically-induced coma since the Promised Day. And it wasn't like the Colonel could check the clock on the wall in his condition anyway.
She remembers opening her eyes to a thin sliver of moonlight streaming through a window on the far wall. Her vision was blurry, but she could vaguely make out the texture of the tiled ceiling above her, pockmarked and cracked in places but holding up in spite of it. The air conditioning rumbled loud above her head.
Above the sound of that, just barely, she heard his voice—a low hum she almost couldn't make out in the dark of the night, ragged with lack of sleep.
It took an ungodly amount of effort, but when she managed to turn her head, she could just make out the vague shape of him, the dark silhouette of his prone body. Her mouth was so dry, her tongue a lump of useless lead behind her teeth, but she'd croaked out “Colonel” or at least as close to it as she could manage. It hung suspended in the air between them long enough that she was sure she hadn’t made a sound.
She had.
It took a moment for him to register, to stop. She heard his sharp intake of breath once it hit, felt her blood go cold in her veins.
The silence stretched for moments that became minutes became hours became years before he whispered a strained, “Lieutenant” into the stale night air. She tried to say “Colonel,” again but her throat was on fire and the sound came out like the croaks of those bumpy little toads they used to catch as children on humid summer evenings years and years ago. Lifetimes ago.
“Don't talk,” he whispered. And his added “Please,” came out so small and broken that it made her want to crawl out of her skin.
But she needed to ask how he was doing. How long had it been? How were his eyes? His hands? The last thing she remembered was standing glued to his side, tears streaming down her face as Edward and Alphonse walked away together, slow and hurt but alive</span. She'd been woozy—blood loss started to get to both of them—but they held each other up as they always had. And then she'd been pulled from him so suddenly, ushered away and into a makeshift triage tent. She’d panicked, horrified at the thought of being away from his side in the state he was in. “Please,” he'd said to the medics. His voice shook only a little—just enough for her to notice. “Take care of my lieutenant.” The rest was a blur.
More minutes passed with nothing but the sound of his breathing to keep time. He eventually broke the silence with a small, tentative,“Did you hear any of what I said earlier, Lieutenant?”
She managed to get out a “No, sir.” She hadn't heard any of it.
The Colonel let out a sigh of relief. That made her skin crawl even more, stretched as thin as it already was over her frame. In the stillness of the room she could almost hear him thinking.
“I'm sorry to wake you,” he finally said. His voice was rough, thick with something she couldn't quite place. That was unsettling, too. She always knew how he was feeling, could always read it in his voice. “But I'm glad you're back here, with me. I didn't think… If I'd lost…”
Before she could register what she was doing or the ache in her limbs, she'd lifted herself out of bed and across the room to him. Part of her was thankful that his eyes were closed. If she'd been faster, a better shot, maybe all of this could've been avoided. He'd still be able to see her standing above him, no doubt wild-eyed and disheveled. He'd heard her shuffle over, though, and raised his face up in the vague direction of her body.
Even in the darkness she could see the worry etched deep into every line of his face. It weighed heavily in the air between them, sour and unpleasant. His hands twitched but remained glued to his sides.
You asked me not to speak, she wanted to say. But I have to. There’s so much I have to tell you.
Before, she could have told him with a look. Whatever was on her mind —he’d look and she wouldn't have to say anything because he’d know. How would they navigate that now? How could she even begin to tell him everything? Shame and confusion bubbled up in her throat, threatened to spill over, pushed further up and out by the rapid beat of her heart.
“Lieutenant?” he rasped. And then a nervous “Hawkeye?” as she carefully shuffled into his bed. It was wrong, of course. There were a million reasons why she shouldn't, but she had to be close to him—to feel his pulse beneath his skin. To make sure.
His narrow bed dipped beneath her weight and his as he moved to make room for her. She didn't mean to, but she twisted her neck the wrong way in her haste to be near him. White-hot pain seared up from her shoulders to the base of her skull. She sucked in a breath through her teeth, tried her best not to sound like she was in pain.
He heard, anyway. Of course he did.
His hands were on her so quickly, his grip firm but gentle on her upper arms. Up close like this she could see how deep his frown furrowed his brow. She wanted to reach up, smooth those wrinkles out one by one. She didn't.
He held her for a moment at arms length, his sightless eyes trying to find her in the darkness. With a small sigh he gently lifted his bandaged hand, traced the line of her arm all the way up to the padding at her neck. She covered it with her own, her touch just as delicate on his bandages. They remained still, quiet for a while—nothing but the beating of both of their hearts together in the darkness.
“I’m here,” she whispered. Her throat was full of broken glass but she sounded better this time, the low tone easier on her throat. “I’m not going anywhere.”
This close, she could feel him nod. That deep frown of his faltered. He pulled her in close to his chest, wrapped his arms around her shoulders before he fell back onto his pillow with her in tow. That little voice at the back of her head, the one that would usually tell her this is wrong, was strangely quiet. It was the middle of the night, and they were already in the room together. They needed this. And it was easy—the easiest thing in the world—to snake her arms around his torso and tuck herself in as close to him as she could get. He kept one hand over the bandages on her neck while she rubbed small, soothing circles between his shoulder blades.
He was the first to let out a strangled little sob. Hers followed soon after. They said nothing, they didn’t have to, just held each other and cried. Was it relief? Sadness? An apology? She didn’t know and she didn’t really care. The only thing that mattered was the sound of his heart beating strong and steady just below her ear.
Alive, alive, alive. They'd done it. They weren't done, but they'd done it.
He was the first to fall asleep. His arms went slack around her, his sobs eventually sputtered out and shifted to soft snores. She held him for a while, knowing full well this might be the only chance she’d have. When she was certain he wouldn’t wake up, she slowly, gently wiped the tears from his cheeks. They were ruddy from crying, but at least in sleep he looked untroubled. No trace of those deep frown lines to be found. She hesitated, but couldn’t help herself—again, this could be the only time—so she leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead before slipping out of his bed and back into hers.
Neither of them brought it up in the morning. The nurses came. The team came. Dr. Marcoh came with his philosopher's stone and Riza swallowed down her discomfort and her horrible relief. Then, they got up and they went to work.
-
Riza comes back to herself in the shower after the water has run cold. There’s shampoo still in her hair. It slips down her cheeks and shoulders and back in thick globs of suds that thankfully don’t smell like cheap hospital soap. She quickly finishes rinsing off. Shampoo, soap, conditioner can wait. She’s no stranger to a quick, sh*tty shower—she’s been to war—but it’s cold enough now that the scars on her back are starting to tighten uncomfortably. Her neck, too. And that’s a new sensation—familiar yet jarring in such a new location. Just another thing to get used to.
She takes a deep breath as the water shuts off, rolls her shoulders and neck to relieve some of the tension that a hot shower was supposed to dissipate.
Maybe she doesn’t remember it perfectly. Try as she might she can’t exactly recall the way he smelled or the warmth of the shelter of his arms. If she really digs deep she can almost imagine the feel of his cheek against hers, the heat of his skin. It felt safe, but what else? Isn’t that what she’d wanted? For years it had been the desire that haunted her waking and dreaming hours. To have it—to have it and not remember the way it felt…
She sighs again, wrings the cold water from her hair, and watches as the drops trickle down into the drain. It’s probably better this way. If she doesn’t remember, then she can’t torture herself with it every night the way she’s torturing herself with it now.
Her clean towels are softer than the ones at the hospital. Small victory, that. She throws on some clean civvies and wraps her towel-twisted hair into a knot at the top of her head. The jazz station on the radio is playing something a little more upbeat for the late afternoon commute. It drifts in through the open door, carried in by the breeze, just loud enough that she almost can’t hear the neighbors fighting. They’re still—oh, no that’s a different kind of screaming. They’ve made up. Good for them. Maybe.
She can’t suppress the little smirk on her face as she closes the window to allow them their privacy. It doesn’t get rid of the banging noise. But now that she’s thinking about it, it’s not coming from the unit a few doors down. No—this is too loud. And hadn’t she heard it in the shower?
Her front door. And whoever is knocking has been doing so for a while.
She scrambles to her entryway, almost slipping on that damned entry rug. The knocking comes again, hard and insistent. It’s not the coded knock the team uses and she doubts any of the neighbors would be this persistent. Maybe Rebecca decided to bring Hayate over herself? Her new Central apartment is nice—perks of working for the new Führer—maybe he’d overstayed his welcome, gotten into something he hadn’t. Or scratched up her entry floorboards.
She hastily pulls the towel off of the top of her head, tossing it onto the kitchen counter for later before unlocking her door and opening it ever-so-slightly to save Rebecca from Hayate bounding in with her in tow. Her apology hangs ready on the tip of her tongue.
The Colonel stands there instead. His cheeks are flushed in frustration, worry carved into every line of his face. He holds his fist to the door, knuckles red and ready to knock again. Once he sees her he takes a step back, all of that worry melting away into surprise.
“S-sir?” she asks. He lowers his hand. She watches his gaze flit over her body—toes to knees to shoulders, lingering on her neck before it finishes at the top of her head. She must look a mess - eyes wide, tangled wet hair, wearing whatever shirt and shorts she had at the top of her drawer. There’s no stopping the rush of blood to her cheeks. She opens the door wider and ushers him inside before shutting and locking it behind both of them.
“Is something the matter, sir?” she asks as he’s apologizing to her.
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant.” It comes out in a huff. He’s out of breath, face still flushed. He keeps his eyes locked on his feet and his hands hanging limp at his sides. For the briefest moment she sees a glimpse of him, Roy Mustang, the awkward boy who had been her father’s apprentice, who caught salamanders and frogs in the creek with her on hot summer days, who looked away with a blush and a small smile the precious few times she caught him staring. Something old and dangerous takes root in the pit of her stomach.
She swallows hard and asks again, “Sir? Has something happened?”
His eye twitches slightly in the way it does when he’s trying to decide what to say. It's not something she sees often. He still hasn’t looked up from his boots. “I’m sorry to intrude, Lieutenant. I—I tried calling after leaving the office. You didn’t pick up and I…”
Her heart sinks. She sees him on the other end of the line, head in his hands, fingers raking through his already messy mop of hair. He’d think of a phone booth, of blood pooling and then soaking into the cracked concrete, getting bigger with each unanswered ring. Her blood this time. Her throat ripped open.
“I was worried,” he finishes. Really worried. Worried enough to forget their coded knock and that he has her spare key.
The Colonel’s hand twitches. His pointer and middle fingers curl into his palm. The other two try but don't quite make it that far. Riza's earlier nausea bubbles its way back up and settles in her chest.
She takes a shaky breath. “There’s no need to worry about me, sir. I'm fine, as you can see.”
He frowns, nods. She watches the muscle feather in his jaw as he works through his thoughts. Not what he wanted to hear, but it's the truth. Their enemies are dead. Sure, there’s a long road ahead of them, but they know that. They’ve planned and prepared their whole lives for that. Worrying about her has never been part of it—it's her job to worry about him—to make sure those plans come to fruition. Her job to remind him.
”I’ll make us some coffee.” She knows the answer already, but still she asks, “Would you stay?”
There's a kettle just above the stovetop. Riza turns her back to him to reach for it. Behind her, the Colonel makes a strangled little choking sound. She startles, losing her grasp on the kettle for a moment. It bounces between her hands before landing sideways on the countertop.
“Sir?”
She glances over her shoulder at him, and the anguish in his dark eyes freezes the blood in her veins. His mouth hangs open, bottom lip trembling. “That,” he starts in a voice that is too small for him. “That was supposed to heal better.”
Her back, she realizes. White shirt, wet hair. He can see the top of the array and the larger of her scars - an angry splotch that spans most of her left shoulder blade. She doesn't normally make a habit of thinking about or looking at it, but she knows by feel that the tissue there is raised and knotted. Was it supposed to heal better? Admittedly, she hadn’t done more than the bare minimum to aid the process. It occurs to her that she might be one of the only people to survive one of his burns.
Anger flares hot just beneath her cheeks, spreads down her body and blooms in her limbs.
She takes a steadying breath before she turns to face him again, tearing her scarred flesh from his view. He's about to say something stupid and self-effacing. She sees him pull in the breath he’ll need to say it, the words poised just there behind his parted lips. She'd rather turn to ash in front of him than hear him apologize to her. Not for this. “Don't,” she says in a tone that brooks no argument. “It was my choice. You know it was.” Don't take this from me —unspoken but heard just as clearly— Not you .
He nods, resigned. Whatever indignation she felt fades away at the hurt look in his eyes. His already messy hair obscures them just enough and she has the sudden urge to brush it away, to sink her fingers into the strands at his forehead and push them all the way back out of his face, to press the pads of her fingers into the skin at the crown of his head. Would his hair be soft? Sweaty, the way her palms are now? Would he shy away or lean in? She'd never do it, but right now she struggles to find a good reason not to.
He clears his throat and the urge thankfully vanishes as fast as it appeared. “You're right, Lieutenant. Thank you for making coffee.”
Riza gestures over the little counter to where her old couch sits in the corner of the living room, and tells him to make himself comfortable. She turns back to the stove, his gaze still burning through her shirt to the spot on her left shoulder blade. The range clicks once, twice, three times before a small blue flame blooms to life underneath the scratched enamel of her kettle. Hopefully she still has enough coffee for the both of them buried somewhere in the cabinet.
She waits for the sound of his boots to recede into the living room. It doesn't come. The air remains heavy between them, stifling in the same way it had been before she opened her windows.
Whatever this thing is with him, they need to talk about it. Clear the air. It's putting her on edge in a way she hasn't felt around him in, well, a long time. She presses her eyes shut, scared for a moment that when she opens them she'll find she's laid flat on her stomach, wind-chapped face shoved fully into the lens of her scope as she surveys hills of sun-bleached sand and not-yet-sun-bleached bodies.
Another heavy sigh balloons in her lungs. She swallows it down and asks instead if he could make himself useful and check the pantry for coffee beans—the door is just up and to his right. There's some surprise in his little, “Oh, sure,” but he moves to open the door as she asked.
He takes his time digging through the pantry, no doubt also waiting for this heaviness to dissipate. There isn't much of anything in there, that’s for sure. Riza watches the blue of his uniform coat shift and move around his shoulders as he rearranges whatever sits on the shelf in front of him. It’s more comfortable like this, watching his back. She can start here, work with this.
“You know,” she says slowly, trying to inject some levity into her voice as she stretches out the end of the word, “I was in the shower and I thought the sound of you knocking was my neighbors for a second.”
“Ah,” he hums, distracted. Something metal falls in the cabinet. It scrapes the old wood as he pushes it away. Stalling. Her turn now to stare a hole into the back of his skull. “The ones who are always fighting and then making up?”
"I’m used to a certain amount of thumping, yes.”
That gets a small laugh out of him. That metal tin scrapes the wood again—probably the most attention it’s had since she moved in. The Colonel fiddles with it for a few moments more before finally emerging from the pantry victorious, a near-empty bag of coffee held high in his scarred hand. His lips curl up in that small smile he seems to save just for their quiet moments together, the one that makes her heart race, and Riza can't stop herself from returning it.
That dangerous knot grows larger, twists itself deeper in her gut.
He moves to pass the bag to her, but something in the way he extends his arm is wrong. Pain flashes across his face as his hand spasms and the bag falls from his grasp, spilling coffee beans all over the kitchen tile. He hisses an expletive that she doesn’t quite catch, curling defensively into himself to turn away from her. She’s by his side before he can finish, his hand quickly snatched up in both of hers. She turns his palm to face her, slowly massaging the muscles the way his physical therapist had advised in the hospital.
“You’re not doing this at home, are you?” Riza keeps her tone light, trying very poorly to hide the worry behind the question. He doesn’t answer, doesn’t need to. His little finger twitches as she moves steadily up to his wrist, kneading the tense spots around his carpals. “You aren’t taking the painkillers Dr. Meier gave you either.”
He exhales, slow and unsteady. No, of course he's not taking the painkillers.
“I'm the one who should worry,” she says, her voice so low she almost doesn't hear it. She moves slowly, going through all of the massages she'd asked the doctor to teach her, palm to wrist to forearm and all the way back down again before beginning the routine over again, keeping her eyes locked onto the angry red line that splits his palm.
She's doing this because it helps. Because it's her sworn duty to protect him and because he’s too stubborn to do anything about his own recovery. She lingers because she can. Because his skin is warm and pliant beneath her fingers. Because her heart backflips at the feel of the steady pulse in his wrist and the rough catch of the hair on his arm as she digs underneath his uniform sleeves.
She shakes her head, willing that line of thought away.
“Promise me.” She's stopped the poking and prodding but she keeps her hands clasped a little too tightly over his. She's afraid of what he'll see in her eyes if she looks up at him. “If you won't do this, please just promise me you'll take them.”
The Colonel huffs a little laugh. It ruffles her bangs, fans out over her cheeks. Dangerous. “Alright. I'm sorry, Lieutenant,” he says. “I don't mean to make you worry, but I do like it better when you're the one doing this.”
Riza nods, finally looking up at him. They're too close. She sees every line under his eyes, feels the entire weight of the affectionate pride suffused in his expression, trained so wholly as it is on her. If she were a weaker woman, her knees would give out and she would melt into him the way she's imagined on countless nights alone. But she's Riza Hawkeye, so instead she stares right back at him, matching the stern line of his brow, hoping the enormity of her feelings makes itself known in the intensity of her gaze.
He knows. He's always known. And some part of her revels in the thought of it. How liberating. How terrible.
Can they continue on like this? How long can she hang suspended in his gaze, dangling dangerously at the precipice of something both impossible and inevitable? How far can you hold yourself from the other half of your soul?
Behind her, the kettle whistles so suddenly that Riza almost jumps out of her skin. She retreats, turns to shut off the range, hoping the last bit of whistling will be enough to drown out her shaky breath. She’s grateful for the interruption—she really is. A few seconds more and they might have opened a door they could never close again.
She clears her throat, lets out one more deep breath before saying, “I’m sorry, sir. It looks like I don’t have any coffee.”
The Colonel laughs, low and warm. She smiles despite herself. They can do this. She’ll maintain this barrier, continue to orbit around his sun—a few feet ahead of him, a few steps back and to the right, at her desk just outside of his office door—the placement has never mattered so long as he’s near enough. She'll get him where he needs to go. Where they need to go. And after? She'll have done her part, they'll finish the way they'd planned, and she'll rest easy in whatever way the people decide she’ll rest. It will be enough.
She's about to offer tea when he steps through that delicate barrier towards her, his heavy boots sending coffee beans skittering around the old tiles. Too close again.
Hypocrite that she is, she lets him in. For all that has passed between them, he's never taken anything more than what she’s willingly given.
The Colonel’s smile hasn't waned. There’s a question in his dark eyes that is just as gentle as the hand he places on her shoulder. She nods, a small tilt of her head, but enough for him. The massage must have helped with his fingers—his grip is steady as he pulls her into his chest, wraps his arms around her. She closes her eyes tight, nuzzling deeper into the collar of his uniform jacket as his hand moves up to cradle the back of her neck, fingers resting close but just shy of her newest scar.
There's shock for a moment. A small sense of dread that tightens in Riza's chest, pushed down and away by the frantic beating of her heart. That little voice at the back of her head returns, tells her she needs to commit it all to memory this time.
It does feel safe. She remembered that correctly. Tucked this close to his body, she’s overwhelmed by the smell of him, the fading oud and bergamot of his cologne mixed with the slightly sour sweat stuck to his skin. She wants to drown in it.
“Riza,” he whispers into the hair at her temple. She feels it more than she hears it, a low rumble from deep in his chest, right under her ear. The sensation sends a thrill from the top of her head all the way down her spine. She shudders, presses her face in deeper, her grip tightening around the thick fabric at the back of his uniform. His thumb strokes a lazy arc over her still-drying hair.
Riza can count on both hands the times he’s addressed her by her first name. It sounds unreal, uttered as it was with such little space between them. A secret in a language only they can speak. That thought brings with it another shudder. A confession like that warrants a response. Repayment in kind.
She rolls his name around in her head. It's a single syllable—she's used to addressing him with those—but this one sits heavy on the tip of her tongue, ready to roll off and away from her. Once it's out, she won't be able to put it back. So she holds it for a moment, safe behind her pursed lips. If she were to rotate her head slightly she could say it against the rough skin beneath his jaw, pressed to where his pulse hammers just as quickly as hers.
No. She wants to watch him watch her say it, see the look on his face. She pulls back just far enough to look. He is bathed in golden sunlight, one eyebrow raised. She can make out the slate-grey flecks in the inky black of his eyes. The rest of her vision blurs at the edges, the world suddenly only large enough to contain the two of them here in the confines of her messy kitchen.
“Roy,” she whispers back, unable to ignore the slow, upward tug of her lips. His name tastes sweet on her tongue, drawn out in a tone completely opposite from the quick staccato of her usual “sir”. She feels lighter for saying it. Another secret to keep between them.
It's his turn to shudder—she feels him turn to liquid under her hands for a fraction of a second before he stands up straighter in her arms. He returns her smile with one so large his eyes crinkle shut. It's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen.
“I could get used to that,” he says.
It's as good an invitation as any, so she says it again, savoring the sound of it in the space between them. His smile grows wider as his hands slide up to frame her face. His thumbs trace along her cheekbones, leaving a trail of heat in their wake. Normally, she'd find this kind of physical affection suffocating. This feels right. She leans into it, presses her cheek deeper into his palm.
“Riza,” he asks, “You know, don't you?”
Another thrill rushes down her body.
She does. At least, she’s always suspected, always harbored a small amount of hope. It's one thing to know it in the abstract, and another entirely to examine it out in the open, standing here in his arms in her kitchen made entirely too bright by the light of the setting sun.
She nods, licks her lips, watches his eyes dart down to where her tongue just slipped back home. He blushes—a deep pink that washes over his cheeks and down his neck into the collar of his shirt. It's pretty. She'd like to see more.
“Still,” he says, “I'd like to tell you.” Has she ever heard him this breathless before? Has she ever felt this breathless before?
The Col—no, Roy’s fingers flex at her temple and she reflexively leans forward. They meet in the middle, his cheek pressed firm against hers. Her skin burns where it touches his. He exhales shakily, his lips brushing against the delicate shell of her ear as he whispers, clear as day, “I love you, Riza Hawkeye.”
The last little string that had tethered her brain to reality snaps. She can’t help it, she starts to laugh. It bubbles up and out of her, light and airy. She can't remember the last time she laughed. Whenever it was, it wasn't like this—full-bodied, pure joy. If she didn't have Roy's arms to anchor her, she'd surely float away.
Roy tenses around her for a fraction of a second before giving in to his own soft laughter. They tremble against each other, too close and still not nearly close enough. Riza holds him tighter, muffles her laughter above the service bars pinned to his chest. She should say it back. She wants to say it. The words stick useless in her throat, too heavy after all that joy.
She pulls back from the shelter of his arms. He lets her go, moves his hands back up to cradle her cheeks once more. Unshed tears gleam silver at the corners of his eyes.
Riza's heart flutters frantically against the cage of her ribs. It must know that its other half is close, calling it home. She loves him, of course she does. She's known him more than half her life, loved him just as long. It's a simple truth. The sun rises and sets. The sky is blue. Everything within her loves everything within him.
This moment is something out of her deepest dreams, so why do the words stick?
It's entirely too much. The light is too bright. He’s too close, too beautiful, too solid beneath her hands. It's all real in a way she never thought it could be. The words might be hard to get out, but words always suited him better. It is easy for her to take action, to lean closer, to tilt her head and gently press her lips to his, a brush so light at first that he might not even feel it.
She feels the hitch in his breathing. That gives her the resolve she needs to press her lips a little closer into his before saying against them, “Roy Mustang, I love you so much.”
Roy smiles. She loves the feel of it against her. Having crossed that line, she presses further still, grabs the collar of his shirt to pull him in for a proper kiss. His lips are chapped, but still soft against hers. He tastes a little salty and a little like the cigarette he must have smoked to calm his nerves on his way over. Deeper than that, he tastes the way she'd always imagined her first kiss as a girl, sweet and exciting; he tastes like a decade of longing, of something held so close and still so far out of reach; he tastes so undeniably like him. Like home .
She needs more, more. It might never be enough. Her tongue pushes past the seam of his lips and he whines into her open mouth. That's a new sensation entirely, one that sets her blood on fire in her veins, pools white-hot heat deep in her belly. She needs to be closer, to press herself so closely to him that she can't tell where she ends and he begins.
One of his hands fists in the hair at the nape of her neck, pulls her head gently back so he can trail sloppy kisses along the line of her jaw. His other hand traces a hot line down her back. It comes to rest heavily on the curve of her ass. He squeezes, pulling her hips flush with his. It's her turn to whine. He follows it with one of his own.
“f*ck,” he says breathlessly into the sensitive skin just below her ear. “This is okay, right? Is this okay?”
Riza nods, unsure if she can trust her voice.
Roy huffs a little laugh, peppers small kisses down her neck. “You know, I've dreamt about this for so long.”
“How long?” She manages to ask. Her hands find his hair, sink into it. It is soft and light—a little sweaty at the roots. She pulls slightly, the same way he did to hers, and he moans again. She feels it though her entire body.
“Years,” he confesses. His teeth gently scrape just above the scar at her neck. “I’ve thought about this every day for years.” He says it simply, so matter-of-fact that it causes tears to well up in her eyes and burn a path down her cheeks. They’re happy tears, of course, but under that is such a deep relief. Finally, they can dispel this final wall between them. The logistics can come later—they staged a coup, they’ll figure this out, too.
What matters now is the feel of him against her, the press of his lips on her skin as he moves lower along the column of her neck. She is one giant, exposed nerve. Every touch sets her alight. She has to remind herself to breathe.
”Tell me. Tell me what you imagine every day.”
Roy comes back up to look at her through half-lidded eyes. They carry that same look from earlier, this time laced through with heavy desire. Intoxicating. He kisses her again. Hard, this time. Riza returns it measure for measure, catches his lip between her teeth, swallows down every sound he makes. When he breaks away, he says, “It’s a lot of that.”
Riza’s normally deft fingers shake as she starts undoing the buttons at his collar. “What else?”
Roy’s face flushes, and she can see now that he blushes all the way down to his chest. It is a gift to see him like this; eyes bright, lips red and swollen, sheepish smile plastered to his face. He watches her fingers work, shrugs out of his uniform jacket and tosses it carelessly behind him.
“Well, uh, the undressing is also a part of it, usually.”
“I'm glad I live up to the fantasy.”
“You surpass it in every possible way, Riza.”
Her hands go still on his sternum, fingers coming to rest over the dusting of hair on his chest. A light touch, but she can feel the thundering of his heartbeat just as surely as she feels her own.
They've flirted before; always as a way to keep cover, always over the radio, and always in code. It feels so different to hear the words spoken into the air between them, to say them and to know they are the naked truth. There's no reason to be shy—only a few seconds ago she was licking the roof of his mouth—but her cheeks burn all the same.
“Riza,” he whispers again, clearly savoring the feeling of her name on his tongue, “You're the most beautiful woman I've ever known.”
Riza swallows the lump in her throat. Saying “thank you” feels awkward and wrong in the moment, but it's all her brain supplies. Instead, she gives him another kiss. Her fingers resume their path down his shirt, unbuttoning as they go.
His hands rest heavy on the curve of her waist. They push and she follows, both of them stumbling backward until she hits the kitchen counter. She's finished with the buttons, now. His fingers slip under her shirt, trailing delicious heat up her sides as she finally gets him out of his shirt, throws it away to join his coat on the floor behind them.
He's lost a lot of weight—that's the first thing she notices. She had suspected while helping him through the Promised Day. His ribs had felt a little too pronounced under the layers of his shirt and coat. He's put on a bit since then, but not much. The second thing…well, that's very hard to miss. His scar tissue is angry and red. It spans most of his side, wrapping up and around to his lower back. The puncture marks sit a little deeper, still slightly purple against the lighter discoloration of the rest of his self-inflicted wound.
Riza remembers the pain of her own burn, the smell of her ruined flesh, and the endless, itching ache of recovery. Her heart plummets at the idea of him doing it to himself, how terrified he must have been, how agonizing it must have felt.
Her hand slides down the planes of his torso to rest right above the puncture scars. She already knows how the skin there will feel—raised and too smooth in the areas that haven't healed over in the same gnarled way her back has.
“Does it hurt?”
“Rarely. It's better than it was.”
She can't bring herself to look away from the scarring, at the contrast of her skin against his. A permanent reminder of her mistakes, a gruesome match to the one that mars her own skin. “I'm sorry. I—”
His hand finds her chin, fingers gently tilting her face up to look at him. He flashes a small smile. “Don't be sorry. I'm not. I—It's different, but now I know how you felt. And because of it, I can stand here with you. I can do this.”
He pulls her in for another kiss, slow and tender this time. Riza lets the rest of her tears silently spill over as his hands roam back down her body. She presses herself closer to him, still reeling from how solid he feels against her. Hopefully he can taste the rest of the apology on her tongue.
Before this afternoon, she had taken for granted that she knew all she would ever know about him. It’s strange now, being confronted with the possibility of knowing more —things that were never meant for her. Now, she knows the way his lips feel as they part around her clavicle; she knows how soft the skin below his navel is, how the muscles under it tense and flex as her fingers trace the line of hair that leads down into his waistband, the way he whines her name when she palms him over his pants.
How much more is there to know? She's hit with the sudden need to learn all of it, to see just how many sounds she can coax out of him. She squeezes around him, slight flex of her fingers, and he groans into her neck. His fingers dig into her hips. The bite of his nails sets her alight, spreads more heat through her body.
He grabs the hem of her shirt, hikes it roughly upwards. “Take this off,” he says. His voice is gravel in her ear. Her first instinct is to respond with her usual “Yes, sir." She catches it just before it slips, but the thought of saying it in this context twists something deep in her gut—something to file away and examine later, or maybe try out another time. She grabs the hem as well, and together they manage to fumble her shirt up and over her head. It falls to the floor unceremoniously. Her shorts join right after.
Roy stills. Riza feels the blood rush to her cheeks as his eyes roam over all of her. She takes some small comfort in the intensity of his own blush, which has once more spread all the way down his chest. His hand hovers just over her hip, fingers twitching, almost as if he’s afraid to touch her now that she’s fully bare before him.
She realizes, belatedly, that this is the first time she’s been completely naked in front of a partner. The thought of it used to scare her. It doesn’t, with him. How could it?
Emboldened by that feeling, she grabs his hand, places it gently over her breast. “You can touch me, Roy,” she says through a nervous little laugh, “I want you to.” She needs him to, needs to feel the friction of his skin against hers, to feel all of him on her, in her. He squeezes gently, and even that slight pressure turns her spine to liquid. “I’ve dreamt about this, too.”
”Yeah?” He squeezes a little harder this time, brushes over her nipple with the rough pad of his thumb. She shudders.
“God, yes.”
”Tell me, then,” he echoes. His other hand comes up to cup her jaw. He kisses her again, his tongue pressing in and against hers before moving on to trail sloppy kisses from the corner of her mouth to her cheek and down her neck. He's gentle, his touches too light on her sensitive skin.
“You don't hold back,” she breathes. He squeezes again. “You touch me the way you want to. I'm not delicate, Roy, and I—I trust you.” More than anything. If there's one thing she knows for certain, it's that.
He hesitates for a split second before nodding against her shoulder. His head dips lower as he presses more kisses down her chest. The brush of his hair tickles. So does the way he ghosts his teeth over her sensitive skin. She tries to hold in her laugh, rakes her fingers through his sweaty locks to keep a firm grasp on him. He finds her other nipple with his mouth, sucks it in and bites. Riza cries out his name, shakes against him. He smiles against her skin, soothes that spot with a flick of his tongue before pulling back and trailing his hands lower.
Riza feels like she'll float away again. She's lighter than she's ever been. If it weren't for Roy's hands on her she'd be out of her skin, floating up and away to god knows where.
Those hands are now firm on her hips. They push, and she follows his silent instructions, hops up to sit on the counter behind her. Roy steps between her open legs. She watches his face as his hand slips between them. His eyes are hooded, pupils blown so wide she can barely see his irises.
“f*ck,” he breathes, “Incredible. Look at you.” He traces lightly over her with his thumb. Her breath hitches. The sound that comes out of her mouth is one she's certain she's never made before. She tilts her hips closer to him, searching for more friction, for anything, really, to relieve the intense tension building at the base of her spine.
He laughs at that, another deep, low chuckle that reverberates through her whole body. His hand retreats up her hip. “Impatient, are we?”
“You aren't? Haven't we kept each other waiting long enough?”
He nods. Something sad flashes behind his eyes for a split second. He's seeing it too, all the times they could've had this. Thinking of all the things they could and should have done differently. It's a long list of things, but staying with him has never been one of them. She’ll make sure this won't be one of them, either.
She pulls him in for another kiss, gasps out how much she loves him into his open mouth. They do nothing but kiss for a while, relishing the feeling of one another. Each one feels like the first. She tries to channel everything she never got a chance to say into every one, feels him doing the same for her.
He pulls away eventually, gasping for breath. She kisses the crown of his head, asks him if he's okay. He nods against her, mumbles her name and something she doesn't quite catch into the hollow of her throat.
She's about to ask what he said when he parts her with a finger and dips it in. They both gasp. “Oh,” purrs against her, his lips curling into a smile at the juncture where her neck meets shoulder. He kisses his way back up, worries at her earlobe with his teeth. “Amazing. I can't believe we're finally doing this.”
She nods, buries her fingers back in his hair. He lets out another moan, slips in a second finger just as easily as the first. They're longer and thicker than her own, less calloused, but they feel better than she ever imagined. She looks down, transfixed on the way they pump in and out of her. His hands, the ones she’s spent countless hours in the office daydreaming about, the ones she’d picture even when she was with someone else. Incredible.
He flattens his palm up against her cl*t and presses, adding maddening pressure as his fingers pick up the pace inside her. She bucks against him, chasing that sensation of white heat that seems to radiate out of his hands and into her. Her entire body burns from the inside out. She’ll be reduced to nothing once they’re done. It's a fitting way to go.
“God, f*ck,” he hisses. “Do you hear yourself, Riza? Do you hear how wet you are for me?”
She should have a coherent response to that, something biting and sarcastic like their usual banter, but he drives in a third finger with an audible squelch , curls all of them up to stroke at a spot she could never reach on her own, and her mind goes blank. No words, just their heavy breathing, the sound of him working against her, and the ever-building pressure in her gut.
Riza squeezes her eyes tightly shut, that little voice in her head once again commanding her to commit to memory every single sensation in this exact moment; stretched on his fingers, his hair tickling her chest, his breath hot on her feverish skin. He slides his fingers out, brings them up to circle her cl*t. She squirms against him, bites back a low moan.
“Don’t. I want to hear you. I want—Ow, f*ck!” His fingers spasm against her, whole hand tensing as he pulls it back, folds into himself. Riza nearly jumps out of her skin, the sudden loss of contact just as shocking as the sight of him in pain. She grabs his arm, hops off of the counter to begin the same massages she’d done earlier. Those tense muscles eventually relax under her attention.
”I’m sorry,” he says. He flexes his hand, winces slightly when she hits a sore spot.
“No, it’s alright.” She's still catching her breath as she digs her thumb into the meat of his palm. It’s wet—that makes her laugh. “I don’t think that was one of the exercises the doctor recommended, anyway.”
“No, definitely not. But, I think it could be helpful if we keep at it.”
Riza’s eyebrow shoots straight up into her bangs. She fights off her smirk. “You think so?”
“I’m supposed to do them every day. Doctor's orders.”
“Ha. I’m sure you already had it penciled in.”
“I’m going to, now that I’ve found one I like. You're amazing, you know? I'd do that any time, if you'd let me.” He presses a lingering kiss to her forehead. She leans into it, closes her eyes against another surge of unexpected tears. The thought of more, of a future that includes this, is suddenly overwhelming.
Riza wraps her arms around him, presses herself as close to him as possible. His heart still races in his chest, keeping pace with hers.
“Do you want to keep going?” he whispers.
Her blood has cooled some, but the embers still smolder beneath her skin, ready for anything to rekindle that fire. He's half-hard against her. She reaches between them to grab his belt, and starts to undo it as she pushes him back and out of the kitchen. “I do, but the things I have in mind are better suited for my bedroom than my kitchen.”
”Is that so? Care to share?”
”I’m sure it will be much easier to show you.”
Roy grins at her. That deep blush spreads over his cheeks again. He stumbles backwards, rushes to step out of his boots, pulls them off and throws them out of sight somewhere in the living room. They land with a thud, and there’s a finality to the sound that causes Riza’s heart to skip a beat. They’re nearly to her room now—it’s never felt so far away—she can’t help but stop every few steps to press kisses all over his chest and shoulders.
She manages to pull his belt free and lets it fall to the floor. His pants follow, and, finally, there is nothing left between them but empty space and the fading orange light of sunset. She follows the line of hair below his belly button all the way down the thatch of dark hair between his legs. He’s thicker than she’d thought he would be. Sturdy. Her heart flips in her chest at the sight of him. He twitches under her gaze.
He’s blushing, but he flashes a sheepish smile and pulls her into his arms to kiss her senseless. She burns against him where their skin touches, melts into his embrace. They shuffle into her room. He reaches the bed first, his calves hit the mattress and she shoves him down. There’s no grace to the way he falls. He lands on his back with a huff.
Riza stands above him, tries to sear the image of him laid out on her sheets into her mind–dark hair fanned messily across her pillow, eyes glassy and heavy-lidded as they stare directly into hers. When was the last time she saw him smile this easily, this much? When they were kids, probably. Before he left for the academy, back when they could've been different people.
“Hey,” he nudges her thigh with his knee, pulls her out of that line of thought and back to him. “You were going to show me something?” She stares down at his body. He’s right, she was. But the sight of him spread out like this beneath her makes her dizzy. She nods, clambers onto the bed to straddle his thighs.
Roy silently watches her as she traces her hands up the inside of his leg. His gaze feels heavy on her. The higher she goes, the shallower his breathing becomes. She keeps her touch light, loves the feel of his muscles contracting beneath his skin every time she makes contact. “Riza,” he whines once she reaches the apex of his inner thigh. “Don’t tease.”
She laughs. Doesn’t he know that this is just as maddening for her? “What was it you said earlier? Something about impatience?” With the tip of a finger, she delicately traces the length of him, follows the ridge on the bottom, base to swollen tip, her touch barely there. He hisses through his teeth, bucks underneath her.
“Ah, f*ck. What was your answer? Mine’s the same.”
“You're right,” she whispers. “We have waited too long.” She leans over him to press her lips to his, takes him in her fist and pumps. He whines into her mouth at the contact. She smiles against his lips, feeling victorious as she moves down to nibble at his throat while she twists her fist up and down his length. He's already leaking. She gathers that moisture at the tip and spreads it back down. That hot pressure twists in her gut as his breathing grows more erratic. She picks up the pace, drunk on every sound he makes, no thought left in her brain but more, more, more.
Suddenly, he grabs her wrist, shakily pulls her hand off of him. She falls forward, tucks herself against his chest.
“Everything okay?” she asks, breathless. A thin sheen of sweat glistens on his forehead, sticks his hair to it in a messy pattern. She draws a line through it, rakes his hair back out of his face.
“Y-yes,” he groans. “Too good. I almost—I want...”
“Me too,” she says. “I need you.” She can’t decide how, though. She's spent the loneliest nights of the last decade imagining every possible way they could go about this. There will be other times for what she was just doing. She’ll bring him home, draw those sounds from him again with her hands, her mouth. Now, though, she’ll burst out of her skin if she can’t have him inside her.
Roy grabs her leg just behind her knee, bends it up and over his hip. She rolls onto her back and he follows, arms braced on either side of her head to hold himself up above her. He settles himself in the cradle of her hips. His weight on her is wonderful. Where she would normally feel trapped and claustrophobic, she now feels comfortable and content. They were made for each other, made to be like this.
She rolls her hips beneath him, chasing some more of that friction from earlier. Amazing, to see up close the way his face twists in pleasure, to know that she’s the reason why. She sets a pace that starts that pressure building once again. “You feel so good,” he whispers against her lips, “God, you’re so wet for me, Riza. It’s like you’ve never been this turned on for anyone else, have you?”
Her face flushes. Of course she hasn't. The fact shouldn’t embarrass her, but it does. He sees it, and that frustrating, mischievous spark flashes in his eyes. Bad timing. Something in her chest seizes, even as her hips still chase the end to that wave that’s building inside her. “Roy, please .”
“Please what?” He pulls away, grabs himself and teases the tip up through her slick folds, lines himself up with her. He dips in slightly, but doesn’t push any further. She screws her eyes shut, ekes out a small moan as she bucks her hips against him. He has the audacity to laugh. Stupid, infuriating man.
Riza bites back a groan. “I need…”
“Tell me.”
Her breathing has grown ragged. It’s all too much. “I need you.”
“You need me to what?”
She meets his eyes, says plainly, “I need to feel you inside of me.”
A grin splits his face. She feels him throb against her—this teasing must be just as torturous for him as it is for her. He groans. “Yeah, okay. I can do that for you, love, but I need you to look at me.”
Riza looks down her body to where they’re almost joined, watches as he slowly sinks into her, inch by delicious inch. He felt thick in her hand, he feels even thicker inside her. He collapses forward, presses wet kisses up her sternum, whines her name into the sensitive skin beneath her jaw. “You’re incredible,” he tells her through a shaky breath. “So f*cking perfect.”
He is too. She’s never felt this full in her life. She can feel him pulse inside her, feel how tense he is around her—holding himself back. That heat from before floods her nerves, coils in her gut. She wonders if she actually will drown in him; he’s on top of her, inside of her, his arms around her, his scent in her nose, the salt taste of his sweat and saliva on her tongue.
“Roy,” she whines, “God, please, move.”
He does. Slowly, at first. He pulls himself almost all the way out before slamming fully back into her. She rises up to meet him, rolls herself against the waves of his body. They set a measured pace and she revels in the feel of all of it, part of her still wondering when she’ll wake up. But every time that doubt sets in, he pulls her back to him; with a kiss, or a moan of her name, or a thrust of his hips.
One thing is certain, they’re giving the neighbors a run for their money. Riza wants to stay quiet, she really does, but she’s never felt like this before. She’s forgotten every word but Roy , and harder , and more . He obliges, moans against her as she clenches around him. She’s close. That heat in her spine has her tense to the point of breaking. Electricity crackles just underneath the surface of her skin.
He lifts her hips up slightly, finds an angle that allows him to snake his hand down between them to where they’re joined. He traces circles around her cl*t and she sees stars, drags her nails down his arms, leaving angry, red welts in their wake.
“Do you like that?” he growls. Her hips stutter, but he keeps his frantic pace. A bead of sweat drips down his face and onto her breast. He leans forward to lick it up, his tongue hot and incredibly wet on her sensitive skin. She closes her eyes again, nods her head yes. “Do you know what you do to me? How incredible you feel? I'm so f*cking close, Riza.”
“Ah,” she whines, “Me too. Almost—”
He increases the pressure on her cl*t, circles it faster, pounds relentlessly against her body. It hits her all at once. There's a flash of blinding white behind her eyelids and then she tenses, arches her back, and comes apart underneath him. She probably says something, but she’s too far gone to know it. He follows right after, moans her name into her shoulder as he shudders inside her.
It takes her a few moments to come back to herself. She finds she's wrapped in his arms, her head pressed firmly to his chest. He presses soft kisses to her sweaty face, murmurs how much he loves her into the hair at her temple. His fingers idly, lovingly drift over the marred skin on her back.
“How are you feeling?” he asks. His voice rumbles just below her ear.
Her limbs are heavy, she feels warm all over. She inhales a deep breath, savors the smell of his skin and his sweat and what little remains of his cologne. She rubs her legs together. They're already sore. Her thighs burn from it, and she's vaguely aware of the feeling of him seeping out of her.
She hums against him. “Happy.”
“Yeah.” The word sticks in his throat. “Me too.”
Riza lifts her face to his and her heart swells. Tears roll down his cheeks and onto her pillow. The sun has almost fully set, but in the remaining glow of twilight, they gleam gold. The pure affection in his eyes bowls her over, freezes her in place. He reaches up to gently tuck her hair behind her ear, lets his touch linger on the scar at her neck. She smiles at him, leans forward to kiss the tears from his cheeks.
“I love you,” she whispers.
“I love you, too.”
She settles back against his chest and closes her eyes, feeling full in a way she’s never really felt before. Complete. He kisses the crown of her head, threads his fingers through hers. They'll get up and shower off in a minute. They'll get dinner to go, bring it back to hers, and talk about it all later.There are, of course, a lot of logistics involved in an illicit affair. But they’ve done harder things, worse and better. All of that can wait.
Right now, the only thing that matters is the press of his skin to hers, the sound of their hearts beating in tandem.
Alive, alive, alive.
