Zanne Chaos (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} emilie_burns) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} chaotic_library,@ 2007-06-14 13:11:00 |
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| Current music: | Coming Back to Life - Pink Floyd |
[ed/riza; nc-17] Coming Back to Life
Title: Coming Back to Life
Author: emilie_burns
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairing: Edward Elric/Riza Hawkeye, implied one-sided Roy/Ed and Roy/Riza
Prompt: #13, Candlelit Loss (16Candles_Fics); Riza month (FMA FuhQ)
Word Count: 9014
Genre: Angst/Romance/Smut
Rating: NC-17
Summary: It was cold. A bitter sort of chill that the wind pushed down her coat collar and around her neck to settle into her bones. Cold and stiff, like the dead. It was overcast, neither rain or sun, but a dull sort of numb gray sky that went on forever.
Warnings: Character death, het smut
Author's Notes: Thanks to velvet-mace for letting me pick up a dropped claim for FMA FuhQ and giving me a deadline extension on it. Future AU, no end of series/movie aspects/spoilers, and no spoilery manga details pertaining to Riza. I was working on a completely different fic when this bunny came along out of nowhere and ATTACKED ME. Now I dead from fic. Ow. Tissue warning past this point. Ow. I'm sorry, the other fic was hotter but kept stalling on me and this one isn't hot as much as sad and hurty.
Chanson du Jour: Pink Floyd : Coming Back to Life (8.67MB, mp3) [yousendit | megaupload | sendspace]
Original LJ Post Date: December 04, 2006 @ Chaotic_Library
***
It was cold. A bitter sort of chill that the wind pushed down her coat collar and around her neck to settle into her bones. Cold and stiff, like the dead. It was overcast, neither rain or sun, but a dull sort of numb gray sky that went on forever.
Like the dead.
The rifles fired in perfect time, solemn and orderly, and they cut across her nerves with their loud report, like a hammer falling. A nail in a coffin.
Like the dead.
It felt like the bullets were cutting through her, like they should have -- they should have hit her instead -- as she watched the flag removed from the coffin and folded with military precision, and remained in hand with a general who would arrange for its delivery to his parents.
Parents who hadn't even come to their own son's funeral.
She had more a right to that flag than they did. That feeling tore at her -- like the bullets should have -- and left a raw wound behind. She couldn't cry. She couldn't grieve, at least not in public. What if she grieved too much? What if people wondered? He'd never known, not as far as she knew, but if people knew now, he couldn't defend himself. He couldn't deny any whispers, postmortem rumors about any dalliances in life. And no one would be likely to listen to her.
So Riza Hawkeye kept it in, kept her eyes dry with the cold, bitter wind, and let the report of the rifles tear through her and never moved as General Roy Mustang's coffin was lowered into the ground.
Everything was dead that day.
"There's an unceasing wind that blows through this night,
And there's dust in my eyes that blinds my sight,
And silence that speaks so much louder than words
Of promises broken."
- Pink Floyd, Sorrow
He'd arrived to the funeral late and left early, staying to the outskirts, not wanting to risk talking to anyone. He kept everything secure behind walls and masks, and he hated funerals. He hated them, and he noted with some degree of irony that he'd really not been to that many. Mustang's was the first he was actually able to be there for, that he knew about, since he and Al buried their mother.
That jackass wasn't supposed to die.
It didn't really bother him though. After all, it wasn't like with Hughes; Mustang's death wasn't related to anything Ed had a hand in, however remotely. And really, that jackass was called that for a reason. He was an annoying pest who couldn't mind his own business and acted like he was superior, smarter, better, all the damn time when he really wasn't. It wasn't like he'd been that big of a part of Ed's life. Sure, he'd owed the man a few things, but he'd more than paid it back over the years.
There really wasn't any reason why there would be a raw, aching sense of bleak loss, or a nagging voice in the back of his mind whispering reminders of words never spoken, that would never be spoken. Ever.
Except maybe to cold marble when no one else was in sight.
Ed excused himself shortly after they returned to the hotel, to get away from his brother's concerned and far too perceptive eyes, to avoid his questions, his repeated inquiries as to whether he was really okay and the refusal to accept Ed's insistences that yes, of course he was, and could they please keep pretending that he was and not talk about it. Because there was nothing to talk about. There was nothing to say and how could he tell his brother that he loved that crazy bastard, maybe even in that way, when he knew what Al would say, what he'd do. He'd just smile in that sad, sweet, beautiful way of his and whisper that he'd known all along. And of course, he did. Ed couldn't hide anything from Al.
So he ignored the wind, ignored the cold, and hunched his shoulders under the coat as he made the long walk across the city and into the outskirts where the graveyard was located, and then over the perfectly manicured grounds. It was over now, the funeral. No one lingered on a day like that, with the light starting to fade as the unseen sun fell behind the west. It would be empty, just them, and he could be there then like he couldn't before.
But as he drew near, he realized that no, he wasn't alone. There was a coated figure standing off a ways, facing the grave on the gentle slope of the hill. Military. He could tell by the dark color, the cut of the coat. Blonde. Blonde hair. It was Captain Hawkeye. He stopped, biting back a petty surge of anger -- she'd been around him all the time in life, couldn't he have a few moments alone with him in death? -- and hesitated. She'd leave soon. He could go walk back into town, there was a cafe he'd passed where he could get a cup of coffee in a place out of the wind and wait her out.
She'd undoubtedly leave soon. It was sunset, twilight, and in another hour it would be dark. It was cold, too cold to stand out there for long without feeling the effects. He took a step back, turning away, walking away, leaving. He didn't want to share. She'd go soon -- she had to. She was probably just on her way out anyway, stopped for a last look back.
Or maybe she'd only just arrived, coming back after everyone else had gone, like he'd done. Even where he'd stood, Ed could tell that she wasn't near the grave itself, she was standing back, back in the area where...
He stopped in his tracks and looked over his shoulder.
No way.
Out came the pocketwatch -- the funeral had been at two and Ed had left around three, just before the casket was lowered. It had been going on four thirty by the time they'd made it back to the hotel, stopping off for some food first, and it took him an hour to walk there. It was almost six. She could not have been standing out there for the last four hours. She wouldn't. Hawkeye wasn't dumb. He'd only caught her returning to the grave, or maybe catching a last look back. She'd be either on her way out, or closer by now. She would.
But she wasn't. He'd found himself heading back before he realized he'd decided to, and she was still where he saw her several minutes ago. Another few minutes passed, then he sighed in resignation and walked closer. She knew he was there, a person walking around those grounds, especially in a crimson coat, wasn't exactly unobtrusive, even in the dying light.
He stopped, maybe twenty paces away. No acknowledgement. She was probably hoping the same thing he was -- that he'd go away to leave her alone with him. Well, if she'd not moved in the last four hours, maybe it was time she went home and gave other people a chance.
Ed walked closer, another ten paces, and stopped, clearing his throat.
Hawkeye startled, looking to him like a rabbit caught in the beam of a flashlight, frozen for a moment in time, ready to bolt as soon as the spell was broken. Her cheeks were red and wind-raw, matching her eyes and nose. "Edward."
"Have you even moved since the funeral?" Might as well cut to the chase.
She didn't answer, staring at him, wordless and frozen. Scared.
Ed frowned and shoved his fists in his pockets, looking to the grave. "So?"
Finally, an answer, a low whisper. "No."
He snorted and shook his head. "You're crazy. You're gonna get sick like this." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her arm move a bit, briefly, as if putting something in a pocket. He thought he'd seen her move her hand back, away from him out of view when he'd let on that he was there, but wrote it off as imagination. "What're you hiding?"
"What?" Her reply was sharp and quick, too quick. "What do you mean?"
"You put something in your pocket, and just... it looked like you were trying to hide something."
"I'm not hiding anything. It was just tissue."
Her tone was firm and clipped, professional and solid. And he didn't think he believed her.
No matter, really. He looked back to the grave.
"You should go home. You've been out in the cold too long."
"I... yes. I..."
He heard her voice crack.
"Captain? Go home. Standing out here and freezing won't do it. Nothing brings back the dead. He's not coming back."
She didn't move away, and the low, strangled sound he heard under the wind made him look over at her. She was watching the grave, the headstone, her face contorted in a look of stark raw guilt and pain. He wondered about that, then remembered. It was her job to protect Mustang.
He almost asked her why she'd been sloppy that day.
"Brother!"
Except it had been his job to protect Al. He knew that desperation, at least. The panicked adrenaline as something more dear than even one's own arms or legs was being ripped away. And he at least had a recourse, a final desperate gamble that paid off, but with bitter years and a very steep price tag.
Fuck. Why wasn't anyone taking care of her?
Guess I owed you one more, you bastard.
--
Riza hadn't driven to the funeral, and he didn't ask if she'd had a ride or why she'd been left. It didn't really matter much anyway. Not then, not anymore. Ed made her leave, and kept a hand on the small of her back as he walked with her. Her gait was stiff from holding position for so long, her muscles tensed by the cold that was increasing with the wind. They escaped the early winter storm as they arrived in town, just as the first few drops of icy water splashed and burned against their faces. The worsening weather overrode any pickyness either might have had, and the first place found, as long as it was public, open, and offered shelter and a place to sit, fit the bill. He held the door and ushered her in. The place fit Ed's mood. It was dark inside, nondescript and utterly forgettable, and it stank of stale cigarette smoke and too much alcohol and other things he didn't care to think about.
But it was warm, and after the day he'd had, something to drink sounded like it might have some appeal, for once. And what the hell. It was the jackass's funeral. As long as he was going to drink, he might as well make it a scotch. Just a tribute, not an attempt to figure out what he'd liked about it so much, not an attempt to get closer, to understand him after death in a way he never dared to in life. They sat at a booth, the wooden tabletop scuffed and marked and stained from years of wear and tear, and a red waxy candle stuck in the mouth of an empty beer bottle by the wall sputtered and dripped in an apathetic attempt toward to providing ambiance. They both agreed on scotch as the drink of the night. Ed bought the bottle and watched her as she studied the liquid, and downed the first couple of swallows as if she were taking medicine, a punishment, an internal dealing with nonexistent gods with terms set and matched in exchange for a return.
Either that, or she was just trying to get through it without gagging on the bitter smoothness that had an aftertaste vaguely of campfire wood.
"How could he stomach this?" Ed demanded as he finished coughing and glared at the offending drink.
"I don't know."
"Just one of those things then, huh?" He shook his head and rolled the glass between his palms.
She finished off her first glass before he'd even made it halfway through his. But she didn't reach for the bottle to refill it immediately, and her expression as she studied the empty glass made him curious.
"What is the price for human transmutation, Edward?"
He froze and shook his head. "Don't ask that. You're no alchemist anyway, you couldn't bring him back if you tried."
"I wouldn't try. It's a price, right, a life for a life, a soul for a soul?"
"Something like that." His internal sirens were going off, blaring a warning, prickling the hair on the back of his neck.
"Could you do it then, if you had a full price? If you had someone you could exchange for--"
"No. Forget it, Hawkeye."
"I'd pay it. I'd be the--"
"I said forget it!"
The glass cracked under his automail grip and he swore, pushing it aside before glaring at her. Even if he would have done it, even if he wanted to that badly, he knew he couldn't. It didn't work that way, not quite like that, and that bastard would probably kill him anyway.
"You wouldn't want to do that to him."
"It's my fault," she pointed out, and he shut his eyes tight. "I didn't make it in time, I wasn't fast enough. It should be me in the ground out there. It should have been me. It's only right to--"
"To what? To make him bury someone else like he did with Hughes? To make him live the rest of his life without a loved one?"
She startled again, her eyes a little glassy as the scotch worked its way into her system. "What?" Her laugh was harsh, sharp and bitter. Like the wind. Cold and lifeless.
"You're trying to say you weren't?" Ed scoffed. "Don't bullshit me, Captain."
"I was probably his closest friend after Hughes, yes." She shook her head and reached for the bottle then. "Nothing more. There was never anything more."
Whatever. A darkly petty and jealous -- envious? No, we were never anything like, never! -- part of him took pleasure in poking at the fresh, raw wounds, making her flinch and cry out. He hated that part of him. She'd never done a thing to him, and all those years she had been nothing but kind and warm to Al. She was just broken now, adrift and lost and the only reason he wanted to make her hurt is because of his own stubbornness, his own reluctance, his own stupidity that he'd never tried to get to know the man any better than he did.
"Either way, Hawkeye, you're still an idiot to think he'd rather it were you in that grave or that it'd be doing him any kind of favor to bring him at that price." He reached for his glass then remembered it was cracked, and debated just taking a swig from the bottle before flagging down a waitress. "You're not even trying to do him a favor, you just want to assuage your own guilt."
The wounds weren't clean. She couldn't ignore them or they'd get infected and rot away at her. Never mind that he never did it properly himself. Do as I say, not as I do. He was doing her a favor there, with that. Sometimes truth hurt. That wasn't any excuse, any reason to just lay down and give up or to try and turn back the clock and bring back the dead.
"It's a wasted effort. It is not possible to reconstruct a living creature once its life has been lost. Not for any alchemist. Who is it going to please to bring an abortive chimera back to life? There will be even greater suffering and anguish than this waiting for you further down the road you have chosen. As such, you must keep moving forward, even if you have to force yourselves to accept this."
Damnit. Fuck. There's an irony here, isn't there? I'm not gonna turn into you, you jackass, and don't you dare laugh, don't you dare say a word about my height. But he wouldn't. He never would again. And there wasn't anything beyond there except for the Gate, and who knew what happened then? It wasn't as though he didn't already have a list of regrets twice as long as he was tall, and oh, you jackass, it's not that short of a list. Fuck you.
He couldn't breathe past the words stuck in his throat, past the anger, anger at himself for even considering crying over that stupid bastard who picked on him and pushed him and drove him to mad distraction over everything and treated him like a kid for years until he finally stopped being a kid and... and he'd never told him how much he appreciated it even when he didn't at the time.
*
"You're not even trying to do him a favor, you just want to assuage your own guilt."
She regretted that glass of scotch, regretted that she had anything in her stomach as it knotted and twisted and made her dizzy. She heard him, heard him over the noise in her mind, the gunshots, the screaming. A chant of protests, bubbling and tumbling and spilling and pouring like an infinite waterfall, crashing against her mind, a cacophony of voiceless words and screams as every fiber of her being tried to stop time, turn the clock back, trying so hard she couldn't stop trembling.
She didn't know how to make the noise stop. Short of a bullet in the brain, which had been looking more and more like an acceptable resolution, a fitting end to a life that was paved and lined with somedays and maybes and nothing of substance. The pistol was heavy against her coat, pulling it, and she hoped it wouldn't make too much of a thump through the heavy wool against the wooden booth as she shifted position. She would return it to its holster, but only once she was sure Edward wouldn't see.
Riza risked a glance to him and froze. She hadn't seen that look on his face in years, not since he was twelve. The noise didn't fade but shifted to the background as her attention focused on him. "Edward?"
His gaze snapped up at her, hostile and heavy with unshed tears. Just like all those years ago. "What?"
"I... I'm sorry. I didn't... didn't think that... didn't ask why you'd come back to the graveyard."
A guarded flash of fear shone in his eyes for less than a heartbeat's moment, then he looked away. "Just something I do," he replied, his tone carefully indifferent and punctuated with a casual, one-sided shrug. They were silent as the waitress took the cracked glass and replaced it with a fresh one, which he made no move to fill.
It was transparent. "You miss him?" she asked, a bit timid. The two men together had always been a potentially explosive combination and she wasn't up to dealing with an accidental detonation. Not then.
He glared at her then looked away, again with the shrug. "It's just strange to think he's not gonna be around anymore is all." She watched as he sat back and closed his eyes, his lips attempting to twist into a cocky grin. "Something of a relief, if you ask me. I don't have to put up with any more of his bullshit, none of that 'oh, no, where is Fullmetal, quick somebody get me a magnifying glass before we step on him'." His voice had twisted into a flat parody of Mustang's.
Transparent as glass. Her nose stung and she wrinkled it as her eyes blurred over with a prickling wet heat, and she couldn't breathe past the blossom of rawness in her chest as real as a gunshot wound.
"It's okay," she whispered, barely loud enough to be heard at all as she studied her half-empty glass before sipping it again. "I can't say what I'm really thinking either."
"I don't know what you're talking about," he snapped, too quickly.
"I'm afraid of crying, afraid of grieving, showing anything for fear it might be showing too much." She downed the rest of her drink, trying to brace herself and wondering about her own sanity for saying anything at all. "I can't tell anyone I miss him. I couldn't even tell him. It wouldn't be fair to him if I did."
He was silent for a moment, then he scoffed and crossed his arms. "Now I know you're nuts. What do I look like to you, some priest confessor or whatever those were? But you're crazy if you think stuff left unsaid is fair. Yeah, it's fair all right. It's real fair. Don't you agree? Don't you think it's fair that that jackass went to his grave never having a damn idea how much I--"
Ed shut up abruptly and looked away, his cheeks flaming red and the tips of his ears pink.
"It's okay, Edward. He knew."
Given what he'd just said, Riza didn't expect the look of absolutely horrified, dumbfounded shock that was on the younger man's face as he looked at her. His lips moved soundlessly, then a few squeaks later, he was able to manage a few words, his voice strangled. "What? He... he knew? What?"
Riza blinked. "He knew you didn't hate him, that his help was needed even when you couldn't admit you needed it, and he enjoyed the way the two of you got along most of the time, the banter and insults. It made him smile."
"Well, I'm glad somebody had some fun with that," he grumbled.
"Edward? What else is it? What did I just miss there?"
He went still, then shook his head, refusing to look at her. "Nothing." His entire face was almost red.
Oh, Edward.
She really needed to push her own concerns aside. As she always had. If he'd still been there, if he were still alive, he would have wanted her to do something to put the blond's mind to ease. She was certain of it. Mustang had seen the Elrics as his responsibility. He wouldn't have wanted her to turn her back on them. They were hers now.
"It's hard not to, isn't it?" she asked him quietly. "When it seems as though it should be incredibly easy not to. He could be so infuriating, and there were so many days when I just wanted to throttle that man." She kept her eyes fixed on her empty glass, then poured another. How many was that? Her third now? Her limbs felt heavy and her head was light. "But he also... so much loyalty. It was so hard to not love him. To not be in love with him. And knowing I'd never say it, he was my direct superior, it would have destroyed his career. That was the thing. His career. That was what was more important to any of us. Our dreams and goals. Everything else was secondary."
The liquor had loosened her tongue, worn down her determination to keep everything buried with him. She shook her head and gave in with another sip of her drink, and neither spoke until she once again broke the silence. "I don't know what to do now. I can't..."
"You keep walking, that's what you do. You still have two perfectly fine legs. Get up and walk. Move forward. You'd be a dishonor to him otherwise." His voice was flat, blunt and harsh.
Her breath caught as something sharp lanced through her, tearing through wounded sores. "Yes. I know." The glass left her hand as he pulled it away.
"You've had enough."
She didn't argue. He took a sip and made a face at the bitterness of the liquid, then downed the rest and coughed violently. When it grew still again, she spoke.
"I... there's just the what-ifs left. Maybe... I don't suppose it matters now as it wouldn't make any difference. It just... there's a sense of endlessness out there that's..." Riza stopped and tried to puzzle out her words. "Does it feel like that to you?" Is it the price for never telling him while he lived?
He didn't answer immediately, his eyes distant. Then slowly, he shook his head. "No. No, it's not. He knows I didn't hate him, you say? That'll do." Ed nodded, looking to a far-off place. "That'll do it for me, then. That's all I really cared about. Just... that the jackass knew I didn't hate him."
He blurred to her, and her eyes stung briefly before her vision cleared as she smiled. "That's good. Good. I'm glad, Edward. I'm glad I could help."
A guilty flush crept over his face and he ducked his head. "You're too damn thoughtful for your own good, aren't you, Hawkeye? What about you? Where the hell... what... what were you doing out there? Were you just gonna stand there till you froze to death or until he came back? Don't you have a home to go to?"
His words were not as harsh as they could have been, softened by a glimmer of concern. He never had been good at hiding his thoughts. Not that she'd noticed, anyhow.
"I... I don't know, really. I couldn't move. Moving meant... well, that it was over. Finished. He really is dead. And going home..." Riza stopped abruptly before the sudden wash of panic could make itself heard in her voice. She couldn't go home. It would be too normal. Everything would be the same as it had ever been but nothing was the same anymore. It felt wrong. All wrong. It wasn't right that everything else should be so normal.
The glass clinked dully against gloved automail fingers as he toyed with it, and she wanted to take it back, to pour another. But her tongue was already thick, and her head was too light, light enough for the room to move around her when she wasn't looking.
"It's too normal and it shouldn't be." He voiced her thoughts precisely, looking off somewhere else, another place and time. "We couldn't go home either. Not until we had a plan. At least, I couldn't. Al could've; he stayed because I stayed. I didn't want to go home and admit she wasn't there, flashing a light from the window to signal to us that supper was ready. And it's not very fair at all that nothing else seems to notice someone very important isn't where they should be anymore. It's part of life, we learned that from Master, but it doesn't make it easier to know it."
"That's it exactly. Exactly." She rested her head on her arms against the table, unable to stop shaking at the overwhelming sense of relief at being understood.
"Ma'am? Sir?" The waitress brought her attention back from a private world of grief and it felt surreal. Normal. Too normal. She hated it there. "I really hate to interrupt, but we're talking about closing down soon."
"Already?" Ed frowned. "It's not that late."
"No, no, it's not. But it's freezing rain out there and it's really starting to come down, and the temperature's dropping. Shouldn't be long before it gets really icy tonight. You two might want to head on home before it gets worse."
"Yes, of course. You're right. Thank you," Riza said as she reached into her pocket to pay for half of the scotch and the tip. She wouldn't think about the rain. She wouldn't think that he was out there, under ground getting soaked and frozen. It wasn't right. It wasn't supposed to be that way. She wouldn't think about getting a slicker and going out there and laying on the stone, on the fresh-turned earth, on the flowers still there, and covering them both to keep him dry. It was ridiculous. There was nothing she could do for him anymore.
"Put that away," Ed said as she pulled out several bills, and he sounded annoyed. "I said I got it."
A bill landed on the table anyway. "Tip." She put the wallet away and stood, mindful of the pistol loose in her pocket. "Thank you, Edward. Goodbye."
He grabbed her wrist before she could step away. "You live up by Headquarters, don't you?"
"Yes."
"How were you planning to get home in this weather?"
In truth, she didn't know. She didn't even know where she would go after exiting the bar. She hadn't thought that far ahead; the plan was to just keep walking, moving forward. Wasn't that what he would have expected of her, after all? She would think of where to go while she walked, and likely just go home. It was silly. Just as silly as the low-burning rage at the weather, wondering how dare it rain when he was alone out there now.
He shook his head at her pause and stood, not releasing her wrist. "We're not done talking. Let's go find somewhere else."
"What about your brother?" Riza pointed out as she tried to extract her wrist from his grip. He didn't need this. He had his own grief, clearly, and she shouldn't bother him with her own weakness.
"I'll give him a call when we get to wherever we're going, but he's fine. If I went back now, he'd just hit me for leaving you stranded like this."
"I'm not stranded, Edward. And really, you needn't concern yourself with my problems."
"Tough. I'm concerning myself whether you like it or not. Now come on."
She flinched as they stepped outside; the cold rain felt like tiny pellets of ice biting against any exposed skin, driven by the gusts of wind that snaked around the corners and whipped through the recessed entrance. His hand released her wrist to slide up to her elbow, allowing her to put her gloveless hands in her pockets as they both hunched shoulders against the elements and hurried down the dark street.
After several blocks as they walked into the wind, north to the main area of the city, toward where both of them were supposed to be for the night, he pushed her around a corner, the brick wall offering a barely-effective shield. "Do you want to try to make it to your house, find a phone somewhere and call a cab, or go to that inn up there on the corner and wait out the storm and talk some more?"
"We'd be lucky to find a cab service running," Riza pointed out as she looked around to see where they were. Even under good weather conditions, it would take a half hour or so to reach her house, and the prospect of that did not sit well with her. The sidewalks were getting slippery, and the cold was saturating her. She could barely feel her toes as it was. "We can go to the inn and get some coffee, and try to call for a cab from there if you want to get back to Alphonse."
"We'll think better out of the cold anyway," he agreed, and they crossed the street, quick to enter the warmth of the hotel lobby. Her cheeks felt like they were burning from the contrast, and she stamped her feet to keep the blood circulating as she shivered.
"Hell of a night to be out and about," the clerk behind the desk observed.
"It wasn't exactly in our plans," Ed retorted and approached him. "What do you have available?"
"One double, second floor, two more on the third, and a couple of suites on the top floor."
Ed looked back to her. "What do--"
"We'll go with one for now until we decide what to do," Riza said, and he nodded his agreement as she looked to the clerk. "Is there any room service?"
"We have coffee and stuff like that, but no meals if that's what you're wanting."
"We'll take the double on the second floor, and send up some coffee," Ed told him. "How much?"
"A pot of tea for me, if you please," Riza said.
The clerk made note of the order and recited the cost of the room, which Ed again paid for, brushing aside her efforts to chip in, much to her dismay.
She followed him up the wooden stairs and he unlocked the door. They said nothing as they turned on the lights and wandered around the room, avoiding one another in the silence. A knock signaled an employee's arrival with their requested drinks, and their attention went there instead, focusing on the warmth of the mugs and the heat from the radiator by the window.
Really, what was left to talk about?
Riza was the first to break the silence. "You can use the phone, see if a cab service is running so you can get back to Alphonse."
"Mmm." He looked over the rim of his mug at her. "And you?"
She shrugged. "Black Hayate will be fine until morning." She didn't want to go back to the house. Spending the night in a forgettable hotel room with plain walls and a drab tan bedspread and lumpy pillows was more appropriate. It was different, it was wrong. She should be at home, in her own bed. Not halfway across town half-drunk and frozen to the bone with a pistol still in her pocket and she needed to get that back into its holster. If Edward would just leave the room she could do it, no questions.
"You need to go home too."
"I will." Another sip of her tea. "Not tonight though. It needs to be different tonight. It can't be the same as its ever been because it's not."
Silence. The only sounds were the faint hissing of the radiator and its occasional clank, the latter heard more clearly over the sleet hitting the window than the former. He made no move for the door and instead leaned on the wall. "I'll call later. He'd have too many questions I don't have any answers for."
Fair enough. She poured another cup of tea as he refilled his coffee mug, and they sat across the small table from each other on the uncomfortable wooden chairs, backs to the clanking radiator and curtained window, and looked out over the room toward the distance in their own minds.
"I suppose this could be called a wake, if we had to name it."
"Yeah." There was a sound of wry amusement lacing his voice. "A wake nobody else knows about."
"In a no-name hotel on the outskirts of town."
"And there's freezing rain."
Riza looked over at him. "Mind if I ask you a question?" she whispered. A wave of his hand gave her permission to continue. "Were you in love with him?"
Edward went still, then lowered the mug to the table before answering. "I don't know," he finally said, and looked to the wall. "I really don't. I... I'm not really all that sure how I felt. Maybe I did love him. I don't even know in what way. I don't really want to find out either. It's too late now."
"If you ever find out and want to talk to someone, you can always come find me. I won't tell if you don't."
"Think I would've had a chance? I mean, if I was?"
She was quiet, thinking back over all the years. "I don't know," she said. "I really don't. I don't even know if I would have. I think he preferred the women, though. I know he liked the pretty ones."
"And knowing that, you still don't know if you'd have had a chance with him?" There was a note of flat incredulity in his voice.
Riza looked at her reflection in the cheap mirror over the dresser across the room, her face half in shadow, half in pale yellow light from the bedside lamp. Cheeks chapped and windburnt, offsetting dark circles under eyes that looked too old, and pale lips, a bit cracked and chapped, that were only distantly acquainted with a smile. Nondescript blonde hair tangled and messed, flat under the light. Her eyes went down to her hands holding her teacup. They looked ten years older than she was, with stubby short nails and various scratches from cleaning her guns.
A far cry from the hands she'd seen on others, caught up for a kiss to the back of them while they laughed, hair gleaming and lips perfect. She wasn't a woman, she was a soldier. She'd known that for years. Since Ishbal.
"Fuck. Was that jackass blind on top of everything else?"
"Edward." She shot him a cross look. "Be realistic." Riza closed her eyes and turned her head away. "And I don't want to discuss it." In an effort to forestall any other commentary, she set her mug down and stood, removing her coat and hanging it on a hook. The dress uniform trappings, the sash and decorations and jacket, they were removed and carefully set aside, along with her holster, which she kept out of his direct view.
"I am being realistic. Okay, so maybe right now you don't look your best, but we just walked through freezing rain from a funeral."
"What was it you said before? It doesn't matter now?"
He snorted, a derisive sound. "Maybe it's a good thing I never figured it out. What is it with men who don't realize what they have at home, and the women who waste away to nothing over them? First that bastard father of mine, and now that jackass."
"I'm not--" Riza shut up, knowing she lacked a good retort, and covered the silence with more tea, refilling her cup. The weight of it made it slip against her fingers, the spout hitting the cup and splashing the hot tan liquid on the table. She swore and picked up a napkin, blotting it up, and it was just one thing, one little thing, but couldn't she even pour a cup of tea properly? The numbed layer ripped off and everything from that afternoon was fresh again. "Nothing leaves here?"
"Hmm? No. Nothing leaves here."
"They didn't come."
"What? Who?"
"His parents. They didn't come. They folded the flag and it will be sent to them but they didn't come." Her voice cracked, raw and ugly and strained. She'd never been one of those women who wept prettily. Her eyes reddened and her nose ran and stuffed up and her voice was hoarse and harsh and barely understandable.
He didn't say a word to that.
"All... all I could think wa... was... I'd more a right to it than they did. They didn't come, they didn't care, they didn't... my life for the last decade, the center of it." She remembered why she'd removed the gun from its holster now. She wanted Edward to leave, to let her curl up and scream and not make a sound because she couldn't scream. It burnt her throat raw but she couldn't make it leave. "Should've... sorry." She could barely think of coherent words, let alone try to voice them. "Stupid. I know's stupid."
Gloved hands grabbed hers and fingertips pushed her chin up, making her look at him, in front of her, half-crouched. "It's not stupid. It's normal, I think. I was kinda... earlier this evening I kept wanting to hate you 'cause you'd had longer to be around him than I did. I know it's--"
She couldn't hear him then; that dug into her, cutting and tearing through something raw and bleeding. "Sorry. I'm sorry... should... s'my fault, didn't do what I promised. Should be me out there, not him."
"No, no. It's not fair and I know it. Maybe there's a reason why his parents weren't there. But it's not stupid. And stop blaming yourself. No matter what, I can't see him wanting you to be like this. It shouldn't have been you any more than it should have been him or Hughes or Mom or Winry's parents, but it happens." He ducked his head to meet her eyes, and his grip on her hands was almost painful. "And it's stupid and awful and there's a reason people kept trying to figure out human transmutation. But we can't bring them back."
"I know better than this, I'm sorry, Edward, I'm not really this weak, I shouldn't..."
"We just buried him today and nothing's right anymore and nothing's going to be the same again and it's hard to turn away and move forward. You're not weak, just tired and it hasn't sunk in yet, not all the way, like how I didn't want my mother's death to finish being real."
She looked at him and shook her head, sighing in exhaustion and found a tiny smile -- small and sad and broken, but real. "I'm really sorry now. Such a mess. I should be the one taking care of you and making sure you're okay, not the other way around."
He rocked back on his heels and let go with his automail hand, holding her fingers in his other as he frowned. "What the hell gave you that idea?"
"He would've wanted it. He cared about you both, he always did. He would have wanted me to make sure that you and your brother are both okay, and do what I can to help you both if you need it."
The look he gave her was exasperated. "I'm twenty, Hawkeye. I'm not a kid in need of help anymore. Besides" -- he tugged gently at her hand -- "you're looking like you need it more right now than I do. So I have unresolved issues about another man in my life who I looked up to and I'll never get the answers to my questions about him." A small shrug as he closed his eyes. "Big deal. It's not like I haven't already dealt with that with my father."
"Oh, Edward." She reached out to touch his hair, to pet it back out of his eyes.
He brushed aside her concern, but not her hand. "We'll stay here tonight. Just us. Talk, have coffee, keep it from being normal. It shouldn't be normal. The world's supposed to stop for a little while, take notice that something big has changed."
"Remember how to breathe on your own again."
He nodded. "Something like that."
She wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, or who moved first. The silent room was noisy with unspoken words and questions, and she still felt numbed and cold. The ice was in her bones on a level beyond what was normal. Nothing was normal. She was dead but she wasn't. She wasn't.
He was on his knees, her arms under his as he wrapped them around her waist. The hug was awkward and natural all the same time. Familiar strangers and secret griefs that no one else shared. But it couldn't be comfortable. Not like that.
"You can get up," she whispered against his shoulder and reluctantly relaxed her arms. "That must be uncomfortable, with your knee."
"Heh. That's hardly the worst position I've ever been in," he replied and leaned back enough to look at her, a ghost of his usual cocky grin tugging at his lips.
She watched him for a moment longer, the way the shadows of the room didn't quite hide the gold, an intensity of burning life that had long ago died out in most, in herself. Riza closed her eyes and kissed his cheek gently as she moved her hands to his, a light squeeze before withdrawal. It wasn't a normal night, but that was still no excuse for insanity. "Thank you," she started to say as she pulled back, the syllables lost against his own lips as they met hers, stopping her retreat.
A layer of ice seemed to melt, risking exposure to the rawness underneath, the feeling and sensation buried inside, numbed out by the chill of death. They were both frozen then, separated by mere millimeters, breath meeting breath. It wasn't a normal night. Everything was wrong. They were wrong, weren't they? It wasn't an excuse for madness. She recognized the uncertainty she felt reflected in his own eyes, in the gold. What were they doing?
Breathing.
She lowered her gaze, looking at the face, the lips, so close to her own that she could feel the warmth from him. Another person. Someone else who knew the secrets, who shared them, and they couldn't, wouldn't tell anyone else. Someone else. Alive. They were both still alive, weren't they? It wasn't the end of all things.
But it wasn't normal. Nothing was normal. They weren't supposed to be there. He wasn't supposed to be in a grave. Nothing was as it ought to be and it was no reason to be crazy.
"We shouldn't," she whispered.
"You're probably right. Do you want me to go?"
Yes. You need to leave, you should leave. Tell him yes. Say yes. The word wouldn't quite form on her lips, and the only sounds she could hear was her own pulse now, their breathing, the rattling thrum of the radiator and the sleet pelting the glass outside as the wind whined through the gutters and around the corners. "You don't have to do this."
"What if I wanted to?"
"Why?" She drew back then, her voice stronger in her confusion. Why her? And if he'd been interested in Mustang, surely he preferred men.
"Do I need a reason?"
"I'd rather have one, yes. I don't want to go home feeling like I'd somehow trapped you into something you didn't want."
"Nobody can do that," he retorted, a faint smirk on his lips. He closed his eyes and shrugged a bit. "Because I don't want to think about it. Not tonight. And I can get away with not thinking about me if I'm busy taking care of someone else. I don't want to go home with my own thoughts and Al fussing over me and trying to take care of me and too many questions I'll never get answered still too fresh. I can't work that way."
"We don't need to let anything leave the room."
He hesitated, then nodded.
"No promises. No expectations."
"We'll see where we are when things become normal again."
It was an agreement made with a kiss, deliberate and tentative at first, watching one another as if waiting for something to break, for the other to back down, to retreat. It wasn't normal. As she closed her eyes when the kiss deepened, she wondered if he was pretending it was Mustang instead. She tried to imagine that their kiss was what it might have been like, but no, he deserved better than that. They both did. And she was far too aware of who she was with, because there was none of the cool deliberation she'd always associated with Mustang. Just heat, an unpracticed possessiveness as the kiss caught fire, kindled by something more primal, a need to feel alive, to thwart the icy fingers around her spine and heart.
Off came his coat, carelessly shoved away onto a chair, and he rocked back and to his feet, pulling her with him. She noted with some surprise that he was almost as tall as she was now, having gained several inches since Alphonse's restoration. But further thought on the matter fled when his lips left hers to find that spot, just behind her pulse, just below her ear, a little sensitive hollow that sent a sudden explosion of warmth pressing through her bones, melting off the feel of graves and ice. Her heart was racing now, and the air in her lungs was thick. When her hands slid up his back, blunt nails against fabric of his black jacket and tank top following the curve and dip of his spine, he nipped that spot, breath warm, teeth sharp.
His name was a shaky gasp on her lips, and she kissed his shoulder as their hands grew occupied with their state of dress, altering it, fueled by a desire, a need to feel flesh against flesh, the warmth and pulse and something alive and real and solid. A need to feel alive. Real again. To return to a primal place at the boundary of life and death and walk away still breathing.
He fumbled with the closures on her pants and they turned as she sat on the bed, lips and teeth still exploring skin as she undid the laces on her boots and he worked off his back brace and unfastened his pants. His shoes came off next, slower by unsteady hand, as she discovered and explored the sensitivity of his back, moving behind him, kneeling on the bed, her teeth and tongue and lips tracing his spine and around the edge of the automail and up to the back of his neck. Then he turned and tangled his flesh hand in her hair, breaking off the clasp that kept her ponytail tucked into an utilitarian updo, and kissed her with an aggressive, hungry intensity that thawed her clear through and melted her bones.
Anything remaining was either torn off or disregarded; they were impatient now, desperate, racing against something unseen and unknown, needing to feel each other nownownow, to get away from the pall of death passing too close around them, to get to a place where maybe, even if only for the span of a heartbeat or two, they might forget to hurt. He pinned her to the mattress, the covers messed but still in place, and her legs wrapped around his waist as she moved a hand between them, wrapping it around the heated length of him, guiding the head to where she needed to feel him the most, and in one quick motion, he entered her. There was nothing gentle in their actions or need, and he bit her neck as she dragged the close-cut stubs of her nails against his back, both of them acknowledging their awareness of one another's weakest spots, and abusing that information, stoking up the heat to a feverish roar.
There wasn't much beyond him, and yet there was everything. The scent of him left her dizzy with want, and the salt of his skin was sharp against her tongue. There was nothing spoken, and she could hear their heartbeats, the ragged breathing and slick skin moving against skin over the tired sound of the bedsprings, over the metallic clanking of the radiator. She was all too aware of a life gone, an aching absence that neither of them could ever replace, and was desperate to escape it, an instinct past the pain clawing out of the grave, not wanting to be buried there with him.
Riza pressed her face against his flesh shoulder as he moved both arms between her and the bed, his grip around her almost painful, but her own was no less desperate. The end arrived fast, too fast for her to feel sated, and the orgasm that prickled her nerves was over almost before she realized it. It still wasn't enough. It only left a stronger desperation in its wake and exposed nerves and pain that caught in her throat, her chest, choking her on a sob that was muffled against his neck as he came.
She didn't want to let go, to let him go. It was done now, wasn't it? Over. Over and he'd leave and she'd be alone again with death and ghosts. She choked back another sob, and it hurt her throat, raw and bitter. Why couldn't it have lasted longer? Long enough for her to figure out how to say goodbye? He whispered against her neck but she couldn't hear him, and she couldn't open her eyes as she felt him pull away, letting go of her. Leaving. She felt cold again, without the heat of him covering her, without the warmth.
The springs of the lumpy mattress squeaked as he got up, and she felt the bedspread pull against her before he grabbed her wrist and tugged. He was still there. She opened her eyes and looked at him, at his face, flushed and sweaty, golden eyes red-rimmed and wet. "C'mon," he murmured, tugging her wrist again, and she felt like she was mired in quicksand as she moved, her limbs heavy and cold, and slipped between the frigid sheets. He climbed in beside her, and the warmth returned as limbs tangled with limbs, skin against skin.
It wasn't the sex she needed, what either of them needed, not any longer. She just didn't want to be alone when the day broke, when the clock chimed, when it became painfully clear that nothing had stopped, that nothing had changed, that everything was the same as it had ever been despite a book being closed permanently.
Nothing would fill the emptiness. But life shifted around it, covering it, bandaging it over before it bled out with a hand of metal and a hand of flesh. And she hoped she did the same for him. He could leave in the morning, they both could, and she could let go then. No strings, no promises, no regrets. Just the secrets and the warmth and the hidden place made by just them away from the reality and the cold. She sniffled and brushed fingertips against wet eyelids, and he held her tighter.
"Rest, Hawkeye," he whispered, breath warm against her cheek, and he let go, moving to his back to reach over and turn off the light. Then in the dark, he was back again, tangled up with her under the blankets, and she didn't mind the weight of his arm over her, the warm metal against her side and back.
She smiled and kissed his shoulder, breathing him in, retreating into the tiny world of their own reality. Morning would come. She could ride out the impact and go forward then.
"Goodnight, Edward."
I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life."
- Pink Floyd, Coming Back to Life
- end