whiskeycoffee | "The Winter of Our Discontent (the Door Into Summer Remix)" (Fullmetal Alchemist, Roy/Riza, 1/1) (Reply)

Title: The Winter of Our Discontent (The Door Into Summer Remix)
Author: m.jules
Rating: Meh, a little bad language. Nothin' too scary.
Disclaimer: This is SO not mine. It goes through lotsa people before it gets to me.
Fandom/Pairing: Fullmetal Alchemist, Roy/Riza (though if you look real hard, you'll see hints of Maes/Roy. I can't help myself.)
Author’s Notes:

thedeadparrot was oh so kind to let me remix “The Winter of Our Discontent,” which is perhaps one of the most lovely, subtle pieces of Roy/Riza fiction ever. The credit for my remix title can go to either Robert Heinlein or the Monkees, whichever you prefer, but the Monkees actually kinda fits a little (if you squint and turn your head sideways).

Self-beta'd, so, apologies. *grin*

Guilt is a cold prison, he thinks, and does not like the thought. He does not like admitting that he is trapped here in something he does not have time for. Guilt, like worry, is wasteful. It eats up energy – it devours opportunity. Guilt does nothing but get in the way, but he isn’t innocent anymore. (He still hears echoes of children laughing, playing, stealing time for themselves among the dusty streets, kicking balls amongst the rubble of broken buildings, unaware that in less than five minutes their entire city is going to go up in flames, them along with it, all thanks to him and that gleaming ring on his finger.)

The only way to escape his guilt is to ignore it, lock it away. He doesn’t realize that he has simply locked himself in with it.

There’s a new fragility to Hawkeye’s face lately that alarms him, and he starts paying closer attention. Her eyes are brittle in their cold hardness, and while she’s never smiled very often, she doesn’t smile at all now. He can’t help thinking it has something to do with him.

He doesn’t know what, and he imagines her rolling her eyes at him if he said that aloud, but just because he’s arrogant doesn’t mean he’s wrong, and guilt adds another lock to his prison door.

He wishes he could be angry at someone besides himself – wishes he could find someone on whom to mete out punishment for these grievances. He is certain now that Hawkeye has changed, and that leads to noticing the changes in the rest of his staff. But the noticing is painful and stirs unpleasant emotions in his chest. Before it can evolve into full-fledged anger, though, it points its finger straight at him and he just sinks into depression.

They’ve followed him into the pit of hell, and it’s the least he can do to keep the flames away from them. He takes to locking himself in his office, hiding all his helpless rage and the guilt that burns him up inside, unaware that he’s left them all out in the cold.

Pushing Hawkeye away wouldn’t be an option even if he weren’t a selfish bastard incapable of lying to himself about how much he needs her. She might be better off away from him (sometimes, he indulges himself with the thought that she would never be able to wash the stain of him away, that she could never be free of him completely, and he hates himself for loving the idea) but she’s made a choice to stay, and he can’t make her go.

In fact, he can’t make her do anything at all, and sometimes he thinks he’s going to give up, going to stop putting hints of his heart out for her to ignore. But then the bitter chill of fear creeps in (because where would he be without her?) and he stays exactly where he is, because the limbo of her indecision is better than the hell of walking away.

But the next time Hughes calls up telling him he needs to get a wife, he snarls a cold, “Shut up,” before he slams down the phone. Thirty minutes later, the guilt slams into him full-force: for the first time, Maes didn’t call back.

Four hours after he hangs up on him, Roy is opening his office door to see Maes Hughes standing on the other side, a dangerous-looking grin on his face. Roy knows that grin; he’s seen it before. It’s the one that says Roy is going to get his ass kicked just as soon as no one else is around to see it. It makes him a little afraid to close the door behind Hughes.

“What’s wrong?” Maes asks, the smile sliding away as soon as the latch clicks.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Roy bluffs, though a cold trickle of fear seeps into his stomach. He’s playing a dangerous game, baiting his friend.

“Something’s wrong with you, old man – more than the usual, I mean.” Maes slouches into the chair in front of Roy’s desk, casually lacing his hands over his stomach, and arches an eyebrow at him. “Thought the winters in East City were s’posed to be milder, but I think it’s colder in this office than anywhere up north.”

Roy glares, but his heart isn’t in it, and he sinks into his chair, leaning forward and resting his head in his hands. “Bastard,” he sighs.

“Seriously, Roy, what’s the matter? Other than the obvious, I mean.”

“The obvious?” Roy asks, dodging the meat of the question with the sinking feeling that he’d chosen the wrong avoidance tactic.

“Yeah, the fact that you still don’t have a wife.”

This time Roy’s look is sharp and glittering as icicles, and if he could force any words past his clenched teeth, Maes’ comment about the winters in East City would have been justified. “I can’t hang up on you this time, Maes, but I can snap my fingers just as easily as ever,” he finally snarls, his thumb running across the first two fingers of his gloved right hand, sending small sparks into the air that he doesn’t let go anywhere.

“Can’t figure why this is such a sore spot for you,” Maes says with an innocent tilt of his head that Roy thinks is the biggest bullshit act his friend has ever pulled. “Not like you couldn’t have your pick of pretty women. I mean, hell, even I managed to snag a good one. Probably the best.”

“Some of us don’t have the bad luck of falling for our subordinates,” Roy finally mumbles, bitterness seeping into his tone, and the light of victory in Maes’ eyes tells him that Hughes knew that all along and had pushed him just to get him to admit it out loud.

“Ah, yes, you always did have that problem, now that I think about it,” Maes answers, and the sparkle in his eyes is enough to make Roy pitch his paperweight at him, but of course Hughes anticipated the move and dodges easily, letting the little snow globe bounce harmlessly off the wall onto the floor. It doesn’t burst open, but the plastic cracks a little bit, and Maes looks at it sadly.

“Such careless treatment of presents,” he says as he picks it up, turning it over in his hands. He unfolds his lanky frame from the chair, coming over to put the snow globe back on Roy’s desk. “Next time I take the girls on vacation, you’re not getting any souvenirs, no matter how much Elicia wants to buy something for ‘Uncle Roy,’” he teases, his fingertips brushing the hairline fracture on the base of the cheap toy.

He turns serious again as he looks at Roy and shakes his head. “Don’t worry so much, old boy,” he says quietly. “Just bide your time. Winter can’t last forever.”

Long after Maes leaves his office, saying something about seeing if the food in the mess hall is as bad as it used to be, Roy sits silently watching the fake snow float through the water. Every time it comes to rest on the bottom, he shakes the globe again and goes on watching.

Maes’ visit cracked something in Roy’s shell, but he still feels a little frosty as he pulls on gloves – these fur-lined leather with no array etched into the back – over his numb fingers. He knows the firing range is heated and he’d probably be better off there than out in a icy field aiming at tin cans, but he needed the solitude and discipline that this affords him, and the memories of a similar setting (Maes, steady as always, standing behind him, helping him sight down the long nose of the shotgun, telling him to squeeze, not pull, warm breath on his ear and fogging past his face, still feeling too young at thirteen to be holding the firearm) warm a place inside of him that has been shut away and frozen for far too long.

Besides, he knows Hawkeye is at the firing range, and he doesn’t know if he can stand to look at her without breaking his resolve to simply bide his time. His need for her is becoming a burden that outweighs even the heaviest of his guilt, and as a freezing rain drizzles from a gray sky, he ducks beneath the hood of his winter coat and longs for his wait to be over.

It’s the first clear day Roy can remember in a while, and he needs to be out in it. When he strides purposefully out of his office, every member of his staff looks at him with wider eyes than usual, and he realizes he must look rather intimidating.

Spring has finally slid completely out of winter’s grasp, and he barks out an order for Hawkeye to come with him. She follows him without a word and neither speak as she trails him down the hallways. Well outside of headquarters, away from listening ears and watching eyes (and he trusts his staff, he does, but it’s the rest of the military idiots who would turn him in for less than the cost of a day-old pastry), he slows his steps so that she draws up closer to him.

She reads him like a book, always has, and doesn’t need words to tell her that he is himself now, no longer the stern colonel aiming for another promotion. Their stroll across the street and down the block to the park is leisurely, and he marvels at how she never questions him, just simply… follows. He wonders if she knows he is waiting for her to take the lead.

In the park, there are children playing, and he watches them for a while, unable to discern any fixed set of rules as they kick a ball back and forth to each other, the sunlight through the branches dappling them with warmth. He sees them, thinks, This is good, this is right, this is what I am protecting. I am not a monster, and for the first time in months, the guilt lifts from him, and he smiles.

Lighter than he can remember being in weeks, he turns his face up to the sun’s rays and murmurs, “It’s a beautiful day.” He can’t imagine feeling better than he does right now, but then a tiny hand slips into his, and Riza’s voice beside him echoes, “It is beautiful.”

He turns, feeling hope and confusion rising up through his chest, surfacing in his face, and her smile is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. His heart nearly stops when she nods her head, her bangs falling forward like the rays of the sun, and murmurs, “Your move.”

And when he leans forward and kisses her, breathless, something inside him melts and he knows he has found his door into summer.