[roy/riza; g] For Whither You Go Theme: 52. To the last syllable of recorded time (52_Flavours) Characters: Roy Mustang x Riza Hawkeye Series: Fullmetal Alchemist Rating: G Disclaimer: 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. Notes:redbrunja asked me in a comment to another fic why my RoyxRiza fics were less fluffy and happy than my EdxRiza ones. Admittedly, due to circumstances and dynamics, it's harder to fluff these two. So I poked a the theme list, and got hit with this in total clarity. I'd been holding out on this theme for another bunny I've had since Feb of '05, but I know I'm never going to write it now. There's a crucial scene with Havoc I had in mind that I know I likely wouldn't be able to write without coming too close for comfort to ripping off John Goodman's speech in "Always". After all, none of my names begin with 'C', let alone two. So redbrunja, this one's dedicated to you. You asked about fluff, and I'm sorry. This one's chock-full of cavity-inducing mush, I'm afraid. ^_^ Title: For Whither You Go Author:emilie_burns Word Count: 1104 Summary:Roy Mustang had faced the horrors of war, of near-death, of walking, breathing nightmares that people were better off not knowing existed, but he'd never been more terrified than he felt at that moment. Original LJ Post Date: August 15, 2006 @ Chaotic_Library
For Whither You Go
"Do not entreat me to leave you, or return from following after you: for whither you go, there I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God; where you die, I will die, and there I shall be buried; the Lord so to me, and more also, if aught but death part you and me." - Ruth 1:16-17, KJV
It was hardly the first speech he'd ever made, and it would be far from the last. But yet, it was the most important one he would ever make. It would do nothing for his career, yet everything for his life.
Roy Mustang had faced the horrors of war, of near-death, of walking, breathing nightmares that people were better off not knowing existed, but he'd never been more terrified than he felt at that moment. His hand shook as he picked up his glass of water, trying to quench the cottony dryness of his mouth as he waited in the wings for the signal to come, to call him out in front of a blurred sea of faces.
There it was. The music. He drew in a quick breath and told himself it wasn't shaky, and almost didn't manage to keep from startling when a hand clapped down on his shoulder.
"Let's go," Havoc said quietly.
Roy nodded and tugged his uniform jacket, then strode out, putting concentration into not letting his body language broadcast his absolute state of nerves. He took his position at the front, with Havoc beside him, and looked out over the crowd to the back of the building.
The doors opened. The angle of the doors and his location gave him a glimpse of the Lieutenant General first.
Then he saw her, and everything else ceased to be in any degree of focus, and any words he might have prepared suddenly felt insignificant and woefully inadequate. There were no words that would ever be capable of conveying the full magnitude of everything going on through his mind and heart.
She reached his side (where she always had been, where she always belonged, where she always would be) and he barely registered anything the officiant said. She was everything, every thought, every breath, every heartbeat of awareness, like a dream that he might awaken from if he took his gaze from her. Perchance she might evaporate, like a mirage in the desert, and that was a thought he couldn't bear. The road had been so long, and so many times it seemed the destination was but a pipe dream, a hopeless wish of whimsy as insubstantial as fog.
"General?"
At the firm prompt, Roy snapped out of his reverie and had the grace to blush, and cleared his throat before looking back to Riza again.
"I so easily lose track of how many years you've been at my side, because it's been so long that I can't recall how life had been without you there. I can't fathom how it would be, and I never want to find out. I don't remember when I fell in love with you. It wasn't any one thing, or any one moment, but rather a building of everything as you became so much a part of who I was that to be without you would mean to be without anything that makes me who I am today."
Her lips curved in a hint of a smile, and the look in her eyes hovered between exasperation and amusement. You loveable, overly melodramatic romantic sap. He tightened his grip on her hands.
"I know it sounds like I'm exaggerating, and maybe I am. But it doesn't feel like it. I..." He looked down, faltering a moment. "I had more prepared to say, actually," Roy said, looking back up at her. "But I knew when I saw you that there were no words sufficient enough to have a hope of conveying everything I mean, think, and feel. Even now, a part of me is wondering if I'm not just dreaming this, imagining all of this, caught up in some hopeless daydream I don't want to step out of, and I can only hope I come even halfway close to the mark of deserving the amount of devotion you give me, that you have always given me."
His mouth felt like sawdust, and a strange sense of losing control over the situation and losing his place in what he was trying to say came over him. He should have known better than to try to wing it!
"You're more than I hoped for, better than I ever dreamed, and saying 'I love you' doesn't come close to how I feel. But they're the only words we have. I love you, Riza. From now until the last syllable of recorded time."
There. That was it. He was done. Roy swallowed hard and gripped her hands tighter, hoping she couldn't feel how much he felt like he was shaking.
"I didn't write anything for myself," she said, and he marveled, almost envied how composed and calm she seemed. "I knew that whatever you were planning to say, it would give me what I needed to say, here, today, in front of our friends and family. Wherever you lead, I will follow. You have long ago lived up to deserving my devotion, for I would have never given it if you hadn't already earned it."
She closed her eyes for a moment and the smile grew a bit bigger. "I've wondered too if this might not all just be my imagination at work, but standing here now, I know it's not. Nothing in my imagination has ever felt so solid, so real, real enough to tempt me to stay within it and never wake up. That's how I know it's real. Because if it weren't, I would never be able to want that, the never waking up, because that would leave you without me there to watch your back. I am where I belong, and where I want to be, now, always, and forever. I love you, Roy Mustang. Your dreams are my dreams. Your path is my path. Your life is my life. You're the air I breathe and the purpose behind my every step. And here I shall remain, until there are no more steps left to me."
His eyes weren't wet. She wasn't the slightest bit blurred in his vision. He didn't have a lump in his throat too tight to swallow past, and he wasn't shaking.
Or so he tried to tell himself.
Dimly, he registered the officiant speaking again, and he barely managed to focus on the words in time to speak an affirmation of his intentions there, followed (as always) by her.
After so many years of so many stolen, hidden kisses, it felt almost like dying and being reborn anew to be able to kiss then, in front of so many, to declare without doubt or hidden speech everything she meant to him.