[roy/riza; pg-13] Shelter Theme: #36, Above the thunder (52_Flavours) Characters: Roy Mustang x Riza Hawkeye Series: Fullmetal Alchemist Rating: T (PG-13) Notes: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) is copyrighted by Hiromu Arakawa/Square Enix. This is a work of fanfiction for personal entertainment only. Both concrit and comments welcome and desired. This is based off the manga version, although there aren't really any huge differences contained in the 'fic between that and the anime. Spoilers for episode 25 of the anime, and chapters 15-16 of the manga. Title: Shelter Author:emilie_burns Word Count: 3117 Summary:Human transmutation was forbidden, and he knew better than most why, better than perhaps anyone save for two boys far too young for the burden they'd brought onto their shoulders. He also understood why they did the unthinkable. If a man with the blood of more people than he cared to count on his hands, a man who saw firsthand the effects, the risks, the futility of such actions found himself kneeling at a grave in the dead of night with a shovel in hand, what hope did two young boys who only wanted their mother back have? Original LJ Post Date: July 06, 2005 @ 52_Flavours
---------------------------------
Shelter
It was raining. The streets were dry, and the stars were bright with the slim crescent of the moon offering little competition. But nevertheless, in Roy Mustang's world, it was raining.
You're useless when it's raining.
Water wasn't quite Roy Mustang's enemy, not the way people suspected. Still bodies of water, pools on the floor, he could turn those into highly explosive weapons. Water was merely hydrogen and oxygen, and broken down to their base, gaseous components, he had plenty of highly flammable materials available then. Right after a rainstorm, the air was rich and thick with atoms and molecules he could bend to his will through his alchemical talent. Soaked gloves were another matter. Pyrotex too damp to make the first necessary spark. The middle of a rainstorm. That was when he was vulnerable. Even with another source for sparks handy, the downpour would quickly drench anything he might create.
It felt as though there was a downpour heavy enough to flood his entire world, an unceasing furious storm on high winds, the rain coming down by the bucketful. Weak, powerless, exposed. The silence that came over the telephone line several nights ago was the loudest peal of thunder he'd ever heard, a harbinger for a storm unlike any other.
The stone slab was freezing cold to the touch, and his ungloved hand had long ago fallen numb. He still traced the engravings, watching as his fingertips moved over the shallow grooves. He couldn't read it, there was not enough light. But it was something to get lost in, buying time before he either convinced himself to leave, or before he continued on with the madness that brought him there.
And it was madness. Human transmutation was forbidden, and he knew better than most why, better than perhaps anyone save for two boys far too young for the burden they had brought onto their shoulders. He also understood why they did the unthinkable. If a man with the blood of more people than he cared to count on his hands, a man who saw firsthand the effects, the risks, the futility of such actions now found himself kneeling at a grave in the dead of night with a shovel in hand, what hope did two young boys who only wanted their mother back have?
"This would be where you're supposed to walk up and deck me and yell at me until something got through my thick skull, and then drag me off for a few drinks, Maes," he whispered, his voice hoarse and thick even to his own ears. "This wasn't supposed to happen. We knew it was dangerous, but... damnit! It was my idea, my goal, my plan. You had a family. I..."
His voice caught in his throat, fading into nothingness, into impressions and emotions too intense to be caught by words. There was a chance he could do it. The possibility was there in reach. He would bring him back, back to his family, back to him, and then make him get his fool head out of the entire mess and stay safe. Go away somewhere with Gracia and Elysia, perhaps. Quit the military.
Underneath the turbulence of the temptations and his efforts at rationalizing the merits lay something deeper. Something stronger and quiet, yet too persistent to be ignored. It was wrong. It wasn't what Maes would have wanted him to do. Roy knew his old friend would lay him flat with a nasty right hook to the jaw if he could, just for thinking it, considering it so seriously that he was there in the middle of a night, clutching a shovel in his hand.
He knew what the results had been, a tangled mess barely identifiable as something which was intended to have a human form. Of course, the boys had not used their mother's own body, but merely gathered the needed components. It could be different this time! But what if...? What if he were wrong? Maes deserved better than that. What if he were wrong? What would happen to everyone else under him, the people who depended on him to protect them?
He had not been able to protect Maes. That only meant he needed to work harder on what was left, not be ready to throw his life away -- throw away the lives of those under him -- in an effort to revive just one man.
Even if he were successful where the boys had failed, Roy knew there was no chance then that he could keep Maes from staying involved. He always had been the leader, even when they were kids. But whenever Maes decided to stand by him in his adventures, nothing could shake him from Roy's side. Now the stakes were higher than ever before. What if he were successful? What if he brought Maes back, back to him, back to Gracia? And what if they caught up with him yet again?
Could they live through burying him a second time around?
Roy wasn't certain if the stillness that had crept over him was a sense of calm, or just a bone-deep weariness from too much of everything. He fumbled around in his pocket and produced a piece of chalk, studying the shovel for a few moments before drawing an array onto the head. Wood and metal broke apart as the shovel head turned into small metal toy soldier. It was just as easy to break down the wood and the handle, rendering it into things completely unidentifiable to their previous life as a shovel. Sawdust was kicked around into the grass, and he placed the toy soldier on the ground, leaning it against the headstone. No one would catch him with the incriminating evidence of his temptation.
"Good night, Maes." One last long look, then he shoved his hands deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the wind, and returned to his car.
***
Two taboo temptations in two days. After the train arrived at the East Headquarters, Roy let his adjutant drive him home, where he stayed just long enough to toss his kit onto his bed and watched out the window, waiting for Hawkeye to pull away and drive off. He didn't want to stop investigating, even if only for a little while. The knowledge that he was likely to receive a transfer back to Central soon was barely enough to pacify him. There were too many questions, too many things which did not add up.
The military is in trouble. There is more than one person involved in Maes' murder. It has something to do with the Philosopher's Stone. Goddamnit, Maes. What did you get yourself mixed in with?
He could not stay home. There was too much on his mind, too many questions and no way to find the answers yet, and underneath it all, he couldn't. The last time he'd slept in that bed, Maes had been alive. The last time he woke up in that house, everything in his world was still functioning more or less as it ought to. The thought of returning home, going through the motions, going to sleep as if nothing had happened held a bitter taste of betrayal.
You are such a hypocrite. For all the times you've talked about accepting what happens and keep moving on, you can't do it when the tables are turned.
He had to let go. He had to accept it, to move on, to move forward, and bring whoever put Maes in the ground to justice. He was able to let go of one temptation, to walk away, but he could not release the second.
Not while it was raining.
His walk had led him to her house well over an hour ago. Across the quiet street in the dark, he leaned against a tree and watched, noticing from time to time when her shadow would pass by the drawn draperies. Again, he warred with the temptations and arguments, but unlike the argument in the cemetery, this one he was losing.
Hawkeye was always able to cover for him in the rain. When it was pouring, when it was too wet for him to make a spark, to sustain a fire, he never had to order her to take over. She protected him, from others and himself. He was drowning, and even if only for one night, he wanted to -- he needed to get away from the rain, out of the storm, beyond the lightning, above the thunder.
The lights shutting off, one by one, snapped Roy's attention back to the present. He glanced down the street this way and that before cutting across it in the shadow between the two neighboring lampposts. Black Hayate started barking when he knocked on the door, but fell silent within mere seconds. He waited on the porch, hands buried deep in his pockets, and flinched when the porch light snapped on, blinding him. The door opened a crack, then shut before he heard the rattling of the chain lock, and then it opened again, wider.
"Colonel?" One hand held the door, the other held a pistol at her side, pointed down to the floor. Her eyes searched his face, tired and worried, and he hesitated then. What was he thinking, coming here? Riza Hawkeye took care of him all day, every day, seeing to things before he even thought to ask about them. He could see the traces of fatigue etched in her features, and here he was, keeping her from much-needed sleep, just to ask her to... To do what? To make everything back where it used to be? To make it stop raining?
"Lieutenant, I..." Roy shut his eyes and took a half-step back, forming an apology. Before he could speak, he felt her hand gripping his arm through his uniform.
"Sir." Her voice was soft, but firm enough to silence him. "Come inside."
He let her pull him in, past the door, past her, and stood there in the small foyer with his hands buried in his pockets. He looked around while she locked the door and shut off the porch light. Her loyal black and white puppy was sitting in a doorway, wagging his tail and clearly fighting the urge to run over and greet Roy. He looked at her, her hair down around her shoulders, draped over a white houserobe covering mint green pajamas, her feet clad in plain gray slippers, and guilt began to gnaw at him.
"I don't..." He faltered again. He didn't what? He didn't want to be there? That was a lie. He didn't want to disturb her? If that were true, why did he come? "I should go. I'm sorry. Good night, lieutenant. I'll see you in--"
"Go sit down." Her expression, though weary, was stubborn, and her eyes were soft. Her tone left no room for arguments, but there was neither anger or irritation. Just understanding. The guilt abated somewhat then. He should have trusted her to understand, without any explanations or excuses. Just like she always did.
She followed him into the living room, and stopped as he sat on the couch, calling Black Hayate over. "Tea or water?" she offered. "It's too late for coffee and I don't have bourbon."
"Water would be fine," Roy answered, looking down at the puppy eagerly headbutting his hand, wiggling and squirming at the excitement of a visitor -- not just any visitor but someone he knew. She walked back in, setting a glass of water beside him on an end table.
"I'll be a few more minutes," she informed him, and he saw that she still carried the gun. He watched her walk back, relaxing against the sofa while Black Hayate bounded after his mistress. Did she always carry that, even in the house, to and from each room? For a brief, guilty moment, he wondered if she carried because of him -- not for him, because of him. Out of fear of either him, or for the danger which he had led her toward? Was she afraid of him? Was she afraid of ending up like Maes, murdered while waiting for him to be there?
A soft, steaming whistle from the kitchen barely begun before it was silenced, and a soft clatter of porcelain and metal preceded the lights in the kitchen disappearing, and then she was there, entering the room, circling the sofa to take a seat beside him. The tea smelled faintly of ginger and citrus as she passed him. The gun left her hand now, resting on the table beside her coaster.
"You're carrying a gun." It wasn't a question, but yet it was as his eyes met hers. He had to know the answer.
"I always do." Her lips quirked a bit, a minuscule ghost of a smile that existed more in her warm reddish brown eyes than on her lips. "Call it a habit."
"Even at home?" He couldn't quite believe that, even if he had at least one glove stashed in every room, and another in the pocket of his robe. He was always ready. He had to be. There should not have been any reason for her to live in such a state of paranoia; that loyal, brave woman who freely gave him a devotion he didn't feel he deserved.
"Even at home." She was quiet as she sipped her tea. "I have for years." Her eyes met his again. "I was already more comfortable with a gun in constant reach by the time you met me, sir."
That answered that question, but it created another, one which he didn't voice, and one to which she supplied no hints. Their pasts were always unspoken. Life in the military was on a need-to-know basis, and neither of them asked.
Minutes ticked by in silence, interrupted only by Black Hayate's occasional snorts and shuffling on the carpet by her feet as he laid down, sometimes getting up to scratch at his ear. It should have been a comfortable silence; there was no sense of impatience from her, no questions asked or explanations given. But he was acutely aware he was keeping her awake.
He studied his hands, trying to find something to say and the words he needed to say it. There was nothing to be said, nothing which he didn't know she already understood. He wanted Maes back. He couldn't quite bring himself to slip back into the ordinary -- not fully. Not completely. He barely slept on the train to and from, barely slept before the funeral. When he did, it was nothing more than brief periods of unconsciousness when his body had surrendered to the exhaustion. There were things to do in the meantime -- questions to ask, respects to pay, people to visit. Nonstop. It wasn't normal then. Nothing was normal. It was the very absence of the normalcy which made it okay, somehow.
He felt like he was back in his element then, like he was moving forward. The work to do, the questions to ask, the things which kept him busy and occupied after the funeral, before going back to his temporary lodgings, before leaving on the train in the hours before sunrise. There was a momentum, a focus, a purpose.
Everything was still too normal in the East, as if the effects of the death of a single man had not yet reached them there. It was coming, and he could not go back to things being normal until then. He was scared. The second wave would be the one to hit the hardest, when the numbness brought on by the first shock was gone. The realization that he was gone. The full impact. He was never going to hear him speak of his daughter again, or at length about Gracia's beauty, or hear him pester him to get married. Never. Unless...
Roy looked at her then, feeling the words on the tip of his tongue, a confession, wanting in that moment to tell her what he almost did, what he could have done. Her eyes met his and the words faded, buried, dead. No, he couldn't tell her. For all she did to take care of him, she also relied on him. He failed Maes. He couldn't fail her too. No, he wouldn't let her in that far, into those darkest corners, the weakest places where she wouldn't -- where she couldn't understand. She wasn't an alchemist; he couldn't fathom anyone but an alchemist comprehending the full impact of the temptation human transmutation offered, and even then that was a maybe. The only ones who were certain to already had far too heavy a burden on shoulders far too young. That was a secret which would stay between him and the grave, and follow him there.
The look in her eyes made him wonder if he'd spoken aloud, if perhaps she could see through his eyes into his deepest thoughts. There was concern there, worry. A silent measure of support, and a glimmer of fear.
He wasn't sure who moved first, but one heartbeat he was looking at her, and the next found him burying his face against her neck, breathing in her warmth, the scent of soap and shampoo, holding onto her tight enough that nothing could pry her from his grasp. He felt her cheek against his head, one hand brushing over his hair, another pulling a knitted afghan off the back of the couch and over him. Her weight shifted, and she tucked her feet up on the couch by him, settling back in the corner, finding a comfortable position while she held him.
This wasn't normal. But then, nothing was. It wasn't the same, but nothing would ever be the same again. Perhaps he was taking advantage of his adjutant's willingness to aid him as much as she could, but for that moment, he could feel no guilt. Not in the way she kept her arms around him, offering him a safe haven away from the storm, out of the rain. She needed him to lead -- it was her place to follow -- and that meant sometimes pulling him from the flood so he could keep going. She offered him nothing which he would not give to her in the same position, just as freely and willingly as she gave to him now.
He could sleep then, half-reclined on her sofa, his face buried against her neck, her damp hair tickling his ear. It might still be raining in the morning, but for now, he could rest where the thunder could not be heard, in a place where he wouldn't drown under the flood that was still bound to come.