Entry tags:

flash fiction, fma, fma: manga, fma: post-anime, het, pg-rated, riza hawkeye, roy mustang, royai, z-52flavours, zanne, zanne-lj, zanne: fma

[roy/riza; pg] Clean
Theme: 16 - how fire took water to wife (52_Flavours)
Characters: Roy Mustang x Riza Hawkeye
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Rating: PG
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. No real spoilers in terms of what happened; this could apply to either manga or anime. Pure WAFFy fluff here. Well, fluff'n'angst. It's short, and considering the theme, of course it would be WAFFy.
Title: Clean
Author: emilie_burns
Word Count: 427
Summary: If he touched her with those hands, dirty with war and blood and death, then she would be covered with it too. He couldn't do that, not to her.
Original LJ Post Date: September 09, 2005 @ 52_Flavours

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Clean

Roy Mustang never laid a hand on anyone to kill them. He never had a need. A spark and his own will was all it took. He bloodied his hands without ever touching blood. He could see the blood though, smell it, feel it. It never touched him in the flesh, but he was drenched it in all the same.

She was always near, within reach, breathing the same air, close enough to touch. Always there when he needed her the most, no matter what she might believe about her own success at keeping him safe. How could he explain that he could not touch her because of her importance in his life, not the lack thereof?

It wasn't only him; she had killed as well. Yet, he never saw blood when he looked at her hands. Not like what was on his. If he touched her with those hands, dirty with war and blood and death, then she would be covered with it too. He couldn't do that, not to her. Not after everything she had done for him, above and beyond the call, more than he ever asked for, more than he deserved.

So he placed her on a pedestal, high beyond his reach, a sun in the dark, untainted by his deepest secrets. She was like water, and he was a fire too strong for her. He couldn't touch her, couldn't taint her, couldn't take the risk of evaporating everything about her that kept him alive.

In the end, the risk was hers to take. When he woke there, on the bed in the room in the dark, the smell of the hospital registering first in his senses, he felt her. He felt her breath on his wrist as she whispered, the dampness of her cheek against his palm, the warmth of her hands covering his own, holding it to her face.

He did not want to look at her, for fear of what he would see. But her whispered pleas were enough to bring him to face it, to be willing to suffer seeing the loss of her, his taint on her. Even in the dim lighting of the nighttime room, her eyes met his when he curled his fingers to touch her cheek.

She had lost nothing, he realized then. His fears had been empty, and the hand that she held to his cheek for once looked as clean as the hands which held it. Nothing had evaporated and water proved stronger than the ashes of blood.

- end