deadeye_shot | The Tattoo

Entry tags:

oom,
pre-canon

The Tattoo

Riza feels sweat beading on her upper lip despite the chill air. She shivers in the dark, clutching her jacket more tightly around herself.

She's nervous.

In Ishval, she asked Roy to burn her, to destroy the evidence of the tattoo condemning her to be a notebook for her father's Flame Alchemy. She wants to be free of those chains. She wants the secret to die with Roy. She wants Flame Alchemy to never again harm another person.

She can't always get what she wants, but in this case... Roy promised to burn her.

So she waits outside the isolated Hawkeye homestead--now even more dilapidated than it was when she was living there--for him to arrive. There are no neighbors to hear her scream.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The grit of the poorly graveled road crunches unevenly under his boots, an irregular staggering tattoo. Somehow it feels like it should be sharper, should be the steady march of doom, of inevitability. Something more... or less, perhaps. Less feeling, less doubtful, less regretful of ever saying yes. Through the bloodstained days in Ishval he didn't even breathe a word of regard to her. It would have been entirely too dangerous. Never mind the risk of court martial, the whims of battle can hard to ignore.

Even to a confirmed atheistic scientist as himself.

Don't leave an argument unsettled, don't call a fight over until you are well off the front lines, don't trust a gun to ever be out of bullets.

Don't let the fates know you care more than you ought.

Still - days, months, seasons, years have gone by, and that doesn't mean he loves Riza Hawkeye any less than the last time he told her, before he knew that his master, her father, was fast headed toward his grave.

And he promised to burn the last research of Flame Alchemy.

Mustang roundly curses himself for a fool as he trudges up the path, his pack heavier with every step.

Damn, this place looks even more like shit than it once did.

The first time Roy Mustang told Riza Hawkeye that he loved her, she gently shut him down. And every time after that. She just didn't think it was appropriate for an apprentice to be lusting after his master's daughter.

At least, that's how she justified it to herself. The truth was, she didn't love him.

Yet.

Days, months, seasons, years have gone by, and the crush she brutally tried to snuff out grew and deepened into a fierce loyalty and a deep, abiding love. Seeing him in Ishval confirmed it; hearing him tell her that he would burn her back and release her from Flame Alchemy just demonstrated his own love for her.

She has feelings for him that she can't deny. And she will tell him.

Tonight.

She glances up at the crunch of gravel, and offers the approaching Mustang a tremulous smile that fades as soon as he approaches. "Hello, Lt. Colonel. Thank you for coming."

Her words are casual, but breathy, coming out of her in a rush. Without another one, she turns to lead the way inside.

"Second Lieu..." He lets the words die when she disappears back inside the house. Mustang sighs, getting a last lungful of clean air before shouldering his pack more firmly and entering the house.

Muscle memory locks the door behind him and keeps him from smashing nose-first into the wall at the back of the entry way. Quietly he tracks her down, the ghosts of years past keeping his footfalls soft.

He hopes she doesn't lead him to Berthold's room.

She doesn't. It's only until she reaches her old room that she realizes she forgot to salute him. "Oh, I'm so sorry, sir!" she says, immediately snapping into a crisp salute. "I apologize for forgetting."

He returns her salute, grimacing.

"No 'sirs' tonight. I'm not... I'm not here as an officer." This certainly does not fit within the chain of command. As a punishment, it is unwarranted. As a reward, it is too cruel.

If he's entirely honest with himself (and at the moment, he doesn't really want to be) he's barely here as a man. He's here as a promise, and a deterimination to not go back on his word to her.

"A-All right, s--" Riza starts, and then cuts herself off before using the title she's so used to. She can't stop shaking. Why can't she stop trembling?

Why am I so weak? Just get it over with! she chastises herself.

Hawkeye offers Roy another watery smile, and turns her back to him.. Her movements kick up dust and black mold from the rotting flooring; the odor is deeply special. She takes her jacket off quickly, nearly tearing it away from her chilled skin, and letting it pool on the floor between them. Then she strips of her turtleneck and bra, in what has to be the most unattractive and hasty movements of her life.

She tucks her closed fists under her chin, covering her exposed breasts with her arms. "Okay. I'm ready."

Once upon a time, he stared at that back for hours on end, learning the last secrets of his master.

Once upon a time, he thought the next time he'd see it bare, it would be an entirely different situation.

He knows he should hurry. He can't even begin to fathom the amount of nerve it would take to just stand there and wait for the fire. Revulsion for the task ahead of him makes him grimace.

(And what, it was so much easier, so much better, to incinerate supposed 'combatants', to torch the remains of the dead afterwards so there could be no funerals, no memorials?)

He strangles the apologies and other pitiful noises his mouth wants to make, and raises his hand.

SNAP

Riza screams. The noises are almost inhuman, torn from her throat so sharply they might as well leave blood in their wake. She gasps and cries and howls, curling in on herself.

The heat is so intense, her skin around the tattoo boils. She can feel it bubbling, melting, puckering in lines. The odor of burned flesh invades her nostrils and transports her back to the desert, back to Ishval.

Is this what the victims of the Flame Alchemist felt? She would think that, if she were capable of rational thought. Her burns pound in time with her rapid heartbeat.

Riza blacks out. She crumples to the ground face first.

"RIZA!" He doesn't realize he's barked her name until the pain of the roared word rips at his throat. He doesn't remember leaping forward, the transmutation circle on his glove sparking alight again when he pulls the oxygen away from her back, snuffing the flames.

He will always remember her weight, heavy in his arms, the bitter-slick taste of burnt flesh on his lips. Carefully he shrugs out of his coat and spreads it over the bed before setting her down on it, not trusting anything he didn't bring into this room to be clean.

He should ask, before tending her wounds. She might not want him touching her again. She... wouldn't be wrong to ask it.

At this point, he isn't hoping for forgiveness, so a few more transgressions will hardly damn him further. He opens his pack and dives for the burn kit he made up, scrambling for the salve. He didn't burn everything, of course - that much skin burned at once would be difficult to survive, never mind heal. No one, however, will be able to make sense of these notes again.

Riza comes to soon. She tries to flail, driven out of her mind with pain. She stops when the movements pull on her burnt skin, and whimpers. She buries her face in the lapels of Roy's coat, trying to inhale the spicy scent of him rather than the acrid odor of burned flesh.

Her flesh.

Tears leak out from the corners of her jammed-shut eyes. She bites her lip and tastes the iron tang of blood. "R-Roy?"

She missed the part where he ripped his gloves off with his teeth - very dramatic, he's sure, but more to the point it was fast. His hands are warm where he presses against her back, keeping her from rearing up and disrupting what little bandaging he got done.

"I'm here. Don't move, you're..." The words, said entirely too often in the last few years, die a stuttering death. Of course she's hurt.

He's the one who hurt her.

Hawkeye chokes. The touch is welcome, almost distracting, but she still can't help the coughs that rack her frame. She tries breathing through her nose, and feels nausea kick her in the throat. She must breathe through her mouth instead, coming in great pants.

Stay still, she tells herself, trying to focus on the timbre of his voice rather than the mind-numbing ache. She almost wants to tell him to cut the burns off--anything would be better than that constant burning.

Hawkeye calls upon her sniper training to calm herself, and to still her mind. It takes longer than she'd like, but it works. She opens her eyes, seeking Roy out.

"Thank you," she croaks, offering him a smile.

"I promised." He can't say 'you're welcome', because that is a damned lie, and he can't lie with that smell in his nose, that tackiness on his lips. "Let me just get these dressed. They'll... they'll still scar, but you don't need infection on top of it."

"I don't mind scars," Hawkeye mumbles, clutching his coat in her closed fists.

Why didn't she bring clean sheets? Or try to clean the room beforehand? What about loose-fitting clothes? She'll have to don her turtleneck over the burns, a thought which makes her want to vomit all over again. Riza truly did not think this night through. She wanted that tattoo gone, and didn't think about the consequences of dealing with burns. That's unlike her.

But when she focuses on Roy's face as he dresses her wounds, trying not to cry out or twitch under his warm, gentle touch, she feels guilt threaten to consume her. It pools in her belly, and reaches its icy fingers up to strangle her heart. Pressure builds in her chest, and tears prick her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs. "You didn't deserve this."

His hands hesitate for a moment, an unintentional Morse code of emotional turmoil.

"No." He agrees, finally, his hands resuming their duty, picking up their surety once again. "I deserve punishment worse than this."

On that, at least, he agrees whole-heartedly.

"I have some pain-killers here, but they're... well, they're very strong. I wouldn't recommend taking them unless it's truly unbearable." They're effective, he knows that much, but he's seen a few too many soldiers become unable to stop taking them to be entirely comfortable with their use.

She starts to sit up and protest that, her neck jerking upwards, but settles down when the movements pull on her burns underneath the bandages. "If you do, so do I," Hawkeye says, her words firm and implacable despite the breaths she keeps having to suck over teeth.

She pauses, wondering if now is the time to tell him. Wondering if she wants to put her heart on the line. "I forgive you," she says instead, feeling her heart pound behind her teeth. "Though there's nothing to forgive; I wanted this."

So much talking leaves her exhausted, and she closes her eyes.

"Shhh, you should rest." Forgiveness feels... unreal. Something for other people. Something he can't even aspire to, never mind accept.

But saying so would be hurtful, and he's done enough harm. He's not entirely sure he's ever going to stop hearing her screams.

"I can't, I have something else to say," Riza insists, opening her eyes. She doesn't try to sit up again, having learned her lesson, but she does reach out to take his hand, if he lets her.

She feels a calmness pass over her mind. She may have the worst timing in the world, but she has to say something. She plans to become his subordinate in Eastern, soon, and if she doesn't say it now, she'll never get the opportunity again.

"I love you. I love you, Roy Mustang. And I forgive you.."

Well, that's...

Unexpected.

Like a sniper's shot, and with similar effect. Mustang sits down hard, for the moment ignoring the thought that disturbing the floorboards too much probably isn't a fantastic idea. Roy Mustang has liked his master's daughter from the moment he met her.

He's loved her for nearly as long.

He's been turned down, effectively, for as long as he felt free to ask.

"Oh." It's... stunned, really. He doesn't not believe her, he's never known Riza to tell anything but the truth. He just... never expected to hear it, at this point.

Riza didn't know what she expected, but it wasn't this. She lifts her head and cranes her neck to see him sitting on the floor, ignoring the shooting pains raking their way down her back like claws. "Sir?" she says reflexively, falling back on formalities without thinking about it. "S--Roy, are you all right?"

"Lie down, you'll hurt yourself." Mustang replies, distracted from his own shock to make sure she doesn't worsen her own injuries. "I'm fine."

Satisfied that he's all right, she obeys his instructions, resting her head on his coat again. It's a shame that they can't act on her confession; he's a Lieutenant Colonel of the Amestrian army, and her superior officer. The fraternization laws prevent--and will likely always prevent, as she doesn't think either of them will drop out of the army--them from being together.

The smell of her burned flesh brings her back to the present moment. She watches his face. "Now what?" she whispers, almost scared of the answer. Like the burns, she did not think her confession through--something completely unlike her normal self. His reaction threw her.

"Now we continue on." Somewhere out in this world, Roy is sure, Maes is absolutely furious and has no idea why. However, nothing changed when Roy was in love with Riza. Nothing can change, significantly, now that they are in love with each other.

Perhaps once, and maybe in the future, but now?

"Is your back alright?"

"It... hurts, but I'll be all right," Hawkeye says, biting her lip. It's a truth that he already knows, but she'd rather not admit that he hurt her.

The thought that Roy might not still love her doesn't even occur to her. She can see the tenderness in his eyes, tenderness he'll have to hide in the open. "I'm planning to be transferred to Eastern. As your subordinate. If you'll have me."

He might not want her that close. It's a risk Riza is willing to take.

"If I'll have you? I'd have to be either an idiot or concussed to not want the Hawk's Eyes on my side." If he thought for even a fraction of a second the option to this was retirement, he'd leap for it. He knows this isn't the case.

Riza smiles softly, almost shy. "And your dreams?" she asks quietly. "Do you still want to change the world?"

It's what she's always admired most about him. His confession of his ambitions at her father's graveside planted the seed of love, and changed her life. It was because of that confession that she joined the military, to follow him.

"One day I will be Fuhrer." It's said with conviction, even his exact plan on how to get there is... shaky at best. It's probably better she's asking now, than a week or so ago.

Maes had to do some ass kicking. Thankfully, he's pretty good at that.

"Then you'll have me," Riza says, with just as much conviction. It's a double-sided promise: he'll have her help on the way to becoming Fuhrer, and he'll have her after he becomes Fuhrer, and the fraternization laws are disbanded, as she has no doubt he'll do.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Tattoo

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject