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The bottle sits on the coffee table, abandoned and unopened. Shimmering water droplets cling to the smooth dark glass as time wears on. With every passing moment, another drop slides down, pooling in a ring around the bottle’s base.
She arches her back against the wall, moaning when he pins her wrists above her head. He kisses her with fervor, tasting the sweet warmth on her tongue that’s somehow more toxic than the contents of his bottle.
He drinks her in the way he would wine–welcoming the bitterness alongside the bliss building in the center of his gut. She intoxicates him until he can’t see straight and the floor tilts under his feet. He allows her to roam every inch of his being, every crevice of his soul, just as he does hers.
But despite the familiarity of poison on his lips, there’s a clear difference between the woman in his arms and the bottle on the table.
Roy Mustang drinks to forget. But he kisses her to remember. Her thumbs across his jaw remind him he’s a person worth loving even if he doesn’t quite believe it himself. Her breath against his throat reminds him she’s alive; as a result, so is he. His lip caught between her teeth and the burn that follows the trail her fingernails leave down his bare back remind him that none of this is without pain that they both deserve.
But when her eyes find his and everything behind both of their gazes intertwine, he’s reminded who he is. Without her steady heart anchoring him, he isn’t quite sure he’d know otherwise.
His lips meet the curve of her neck as both hands slide beneath her shirt and up her back. She lifts her arms to shrug out of it, breaking their contact only for a moment as she slides her bra straps down her shoulders, unhooks the garment, and tosses it away. Once more, she falls into him, gasping against his mouth when he grinds his knee in between her legs.
“Please,” she whispers, her breath fanning over his lips, “don’t waste my time.”
He chuckles. It’s a low, bassy note that brings goosebumps to her neck. He tilts his head down to kiss over them, then continues the journey down her collarbone, to the softness of her breast. He teases her nipple with his tongue and she arches toward him, sinking her fingers into his hair.
With every stroke of his fingers and motion of his body, he tells her everything he can never say. How sorry he is for her pain. How much he hates himself for his cancerous ideals that turned her into a killer. How much he hates himself for still, even now, refusing to let her go.
His mouth finds her other breast. She lets out a low moan. He curls his fingers in against the curve of her spine, then moves down her stomach, each kiss another apology.
Slowly, Roy sinks to his knees and presses his nose against the skin below her belly button. Her fingers tangle through his hair. Every breath swells her stomach like slow pulses against his lips.
One of his hands slides down her backside, resting on the back of her thigh. He breathes in, like he’s breathing in her very heartbeat. It’s as essential to him as his own, after all.
Don’t waste her time. Don’t waste your own.
It isn’t fair to say they’re living on borrowed seconds when every grain in their tilted hourglass was brutally stolen. But that time is thinning nevertheless. And he will never have enough to show her what she is to him. He could live a thousand years and still never do that justice.
But he’ll damn well try with whatever they have left.
They hold each other's gaze as he rises to his feet. His lips capture hers and they share a brief kiss. Inching apart, he brushes the tip of his nose along the bridge of hers, then takes her by the hand. Following him is innate. She is drawn to him, inextricably bound by the threads that tie her fate to his.
They stumble into the bedroom, coming apart barely enough to flick on a light. She falls back against his mattress, the springs whining and creaking under her weight. Roy crawls over her, lavishing her body with sweet kisses that make Riza inhale swiftly.
He makes quick work of the buttons of her pants and pulls them and the remainder down her legs.
She props herself up on her elbows, a lazy grin working across her lips. Her tousled hair is mussed, framing her face in gold. Warmth pools at the pit of Roy’s stomach.
Riza shivers when his mouth finds the downy inside of her thigh. Slowly, she melts into the bed, finding purchase on his sheets when he moves in between her legs. But he paces himself, knowing her body after years of practice.
With a gasp, she arches her back, hooking a leg over his shoulder, bringing herself closer. He smiles against her slick heat and allows himself, for the first time in far too long, to love her. In all the ways he can’t with words, he lets her know how he feels. What she is to him. How he exists solely because she thrums inside of his chest.
She cries out. It’s a sound reserved only for him. One of her hands finds his head and her fingers twist through his hair.
He stops right as her breathing begins to pick up. Flushed and disheveled, she scowls with impatience. It makes him laugh, which pulls her own lips into a smile.
He runs his hands up her hips, over her waist, and cradles her face, drawing her gaze back into his. He leaves a kiss on her lips.
“Thank you,” he says. I’m sorry, he means.
She runs a gentle finger down the side of his face. Her knees close around one of his.
“Don’t,” she replies. So am I.
“You’re still here,” he says. You protect me. “And I’m grateful.” I’ll protect you.
“I meant what I said.” She studies his face, translating his words to a language only she understands. “To Hell, sir.” Always.
“Riza.” I love you. The name lingers on his lips, and it tastes so sweet. So dangerous. Like her kiss–hot and bitter on his tongue, but throbbing like a flame, unequivocally alive, feeding his pulse.
Color floods her cheeks when he says her name, as she's caressed by meaning behind each syllable. Her arms circle his neck and she’s kissing him again, silent words dancing between her lips and his.
I love you, she says, with every shudder, breath, and touch. I love you. I love you. I love you.
Roy’s back hits the mattress as she turns them over. She kisses the center of his chest, allowing her hands to wander down, tracing every muscle and scar with fingertips that ignite his veins. They come to the button on his pants. As she tugs the waistband down his hips, her lips ghost over the splotch of scar tissue on his side.
The remainder of his clothes are discarded and she crawls back over him, straddling his hips in a way that brings an explosion of heat to the middle of his stomach.
Through lidded eyes, he watches her. There’s something ostensibly uncharacteristic about her tousled hair and glistening skin. Yet somehow, this is a version of her he’s always known. Because beneath her hardened resolve, careful hands, and vicious ability to become a killer, she’s still Riza. As his lieutenant, she will protect him. As his conscience, she will guide him. And as the one person who has ever seen the inside of his soul, she will still love him. She’ll hold his bloodstained hands, kiss his trembling lips, and anchor him to a reality that makes sense. One where they’re both beyond saving, subject to retribution, but still human. Still alive. Able to take the present by its fleeting tendrils and procure a better future with every breath they have left to give.
She bites her swollen lip, rocking her hips against his. His hands set on her waist, one running up her spine so to pull her to him. He glides his fingers over her scars and kisses her fiercely. Kisses her until his lungs scream for air and his heart pounds against his chest. It’s painful. Every moment of it is painful. But there is no beauty without pain.
At the end of the day, he’s still an alchemist, after all.
She inches away with a short gasp, cradling his face. Her chest presses against his, frantically rising and falling as she breathes.
“You’re wasting my time, Colonel,” she whispers breathlessly. Her lips brush his. “I told you not to.”
He hums against her mouth. “I suppose I’d better rectify that.”
But she’s the one to pull away, letting his hands follow the curves of her body until they rest on her hips. With somewhat of a smirk, she says, “Surely, this is why I’m the one who finishes your work.” She rolls forward and he groans involuntarily. It makes her laugh, the sound reminding him of a bird breaking free of confinement. The flash of teeth and the way her smile reaches her warm eyes makes his heart skip.
“Why else would I have asked you to follow me?” he asks, drumming his fingers against her skin. “You do good work, Lieutenant.”
She shakes her head, blond hair swinging over her shoulder. “Since I do such good work, perhaps you should follow my lead.”
His chest hitches as she sinks onto him. It’s easy for them to find a rhythm. Like every aspect of their lives, their thoughts are synchronized. Their breaths are a single tide, pushing and pulling, part of one steady motion.
Riza’s hand slips into Roy’s and their fingers lace. Her head tilts down, but her eyes are closed while she moves against him. Her free hand finds his waist, her nails digging into his skin.
The warm bliss strikes him in waves, but he keeps his eyes on her. Gold lamplight spills over her. Her short breaths come through parted lips. Everything about the image is both impossible and irrefutable to compare to the soldier who follows him on the other side of this closed door. Lieutenant Hawkeye. Riza. Two different identities for the immaterial soul stitched to his. She’s omnipresent–with him even when she’s not. Between abstraction and whatever tangible reality actually is.
This–being a physical part of her, opening himself like the petals of a rose desperate for sunlight, and loving her beyond measure–is real. It’s the only truth he is willing to accept. As a scientist, he knows human knowledge is only but a scratch on the universe’s surface. He knows that one day he will die with theories unfounded and questions unasked. He could acquire immortality and still only wade the shallow water in an infinite sea of universal uncertainty.
But Riza Hawkeye is one thing he will never have to question. Who she is. How she feels. What they are to each other. It’s understood without doubt. It’s practiced without words. It’s messy and painful and more times than not, they’re all tangled up, stumbling in the dark because the light they provide each other may never transcend and give the world around them any sense or logic.
Roy carefully rolls them over and her hair fans across his pillow. She digs her fingers into the muscles on his back with a tiny cry. Her legs wrap around him. In a soft whine, she says his name.
He runs his hand up the bottom of her thigh and presses his parted lips to her throat. One of her hands slides into his hair. She tips her head back with a moan, scratching his back, contracting around him. Her back arches, pressing her breasts to his chest. He wraps his arm around her and drags his lips down to her sweat-glistened collarbone with a heavy breath.
“Roy,” she says in a keening voice. His back stings where her nails raked down his skin, but moments like this, pleasure and pain are inextricable. Like the bittersweet syllables of her name and like the hot chaos of her kiss, that somehow steadies him as madness negates madness to a certain degree, he welcomes it.
She brings a leg down as she shivers, gripping the sheets with one hand, dragging her nails across his back with the other. He keeps his eyes on her face and she watches him through her lashes right before she closes her eyes with an outcry. He feels her all around him, pulsating, climaxing, and finally falling to pieces. And in an ironic turn of events, he’s the one who follows.
He isn’t sure for how long they lay entangled beneath his covers before Riza buries her face into his chest and starts to laugh. But it’s humorless at its core. Maybe no one but him would be able to tell the difference.
Roy absently strokes her hair, twirling a lock of blond around his forefinger. “What?”
She wraps her arm around his waist, running her thumb across his spine, breathing gently against his skin.
“Nothing,” she says, closing her legs around his, pulling herself into him. “I’m just…” She pauses, perhaps to find the right word. Finally, she settles with, “happy.”
The way she says it adds weight to Roy’s heart. He takes a careful breath, knowing how fragile it feels. “Yeah?”
“I shouldn’t be,” she says, and her eyes close. “But I am. And I suppose laughing about it is easier than dwelling on all the reasons this is wrong.”
He lightly strokes her cheek, then traces the curve her lips form when she smiles. He presses his nose into her hair and sighs. He knows too well what it’s like to feel plagued by remorse, and the guilt subsequent to allowing any happiness to slip through the cracks. They’re horribly selfish creatures even now.
“Riza, I love you,” he says into her crown.
“I know,” she replies. She pulls away, to smile lightly. “Thank you for that.”
She touches his face and tilts hers to kiss him. It’s chaste. It’s over as quickly as it begins. But it’s enough to tell Roy that she loves him too. That she hates herself for it. But she hates herself even more for allowing it to bring her any comfort.
He traces the scars on her back and closes his eyes. He hurt her then, and he continues to hurt her every day. Because they’re two broken people who only function together.
It’s more than enough for him. He isn’t sure about how things would have played out in an alternate scenario. Where they aren’t murderers, hardened by war. Where she’s still the timid girl from his apprenticeship, or, hell, even someone with no connection to flame alchemy at all.
It doesn’t matter. The only life he has is this one. The only Riza he knows is the one in his arms. Whether or not he’d love her in another life is irrelevant. He loves her now. And even after all the horror they caused and the anguish they still carry with them, it’s enough.