Archive of Our Own

A thin veil of fog hangs over the forest when she arrives.  The spruce and birch trees seem to bow a little beneath it, as though their limbs are burdened by the weight.  Her rental car hadn’t taken kindly to the twisting switchbacks she’d navigated on her path to the small state park.  She’d had to drive slowly and cautiously, even re-routing once to avoid construction alchemists at work on the side of the road.  While it was terribly unlikely any Cretan alchemist would recognize her, it never hurt to be careful.

Still, her prudence cost them an afternoon they might’ve spent together.  No doubt Roy beat her here; his assignment should’ve ended a day or so before hers.  It had taken considerable effort to manufacture reasons for them to both be at work in the west independent of one another, but they’d managed it somehow.

That, or Fuhrer Grumman had pulled a couple of strings to open the path for them.  Does he suspect?   Riza can’t help but wonder with a grimace.  Not for nothing, almost all the brass calls the Amestrian leader a fox, and he’s too close for comfort with both of them, particularly Roy.  With as much time as they spend together playing chess and hobnobbing, Riza wouldn’t be surprised if the old man had put two and two together.  

She can’t decide if the idea comforts or scares her.  

Shaking her head in an attempt to clear away the offending thoughts, Riza pulls her overnight bag around her shoulders and begins the march to the campsite Roy had reserved.  It’s too late now to make different choices.  They might as well enjoy themselves.

247B, he had written in his scrawling hand.  Roy had tucked it between the pages of a stack of completed paperwork he’d deposited on her desk before leaving for his own mission.  He’d known she would double-check his work before submitting it.  The thought makes her smile.

Strangely, as she trudges through the scattered rows of trees, her boots squelching in the mud, she finds no sign of other campers.  The pockets of terrain that would normally contain tents are empty, but for the tell-tale evidence of extinguished campfires, ashes scattered on the ground like a fine dusting of snow.  She walks past the small concrete public bathroom and finds no signs of life there, either.  To others, the scene might be eerie:  a misty gray afternoon fading into twilight, no sounds but for the whispers of the trees, no company but the wind in her hair.  

But Riza has always loved fog, always loved the quietest parts of the world.  It’s as though she can feel the secrets of each place, brushing up against her skin like a satin shawl.  She knows what it is to have secrets, to keep them tucked up inside herself, stored carefully behind her lips.  She feels a kinship with these sorts of places, who have seen and known things they can never reveal.  

Her happiest secret is waiting for her, perched on a log with his knees up to his chest, baby-faced and almost childlike despite his thirty-something years.  He looks chilly, nearly pitiful in an endearing sort of way.  Roy dreads the cold, despises it; he’s often overdressed in the spring and refuses on principle to visit Fort Briggs, whether Olivier Armstrong is present or not.  

It all makes a queer sort of sense to Riza.  The center of her world, her warmth and protection, and her reason to go on.  For her, Roy is the sun.  Why wouldn’t he turn away from all things cold and dark?

He perks up when he sees her, his face splitting into an enormous grin, uncontrolled and very unlike the tight-lipped, smug smiles he dons in Central.  ”Lieutenant!” he exclaims, probably too loudly, as he rises to greet her.

She should greet him with temperance – it’s unwise to address her professionally when the whole point of the camping trip is to regain some anonymity – but she just can’t resist.  The weeks of planning, the grind of the frankly boring assignment and the days it took her away from him, the mind-numbing drive over…it all pales because she’s finally here, with Roy, alone.  

Riza breaks into a jog to meet him.  His lips are already quirking into a sheepish expression.  He doesn’t need her to remind him of his mistake.  “Sorry,” he breathes as he opens his arms.  “Hello there, Riza. ”

She falls into him like she’d fall into her bed after a long day.  No matter how long they are forced apart, she never forgets how Roy feels:  solid and sturdy but inviting, ready to mold around her.  He smells like evergreen, as bright and alive as the forest around them.  

“Hello,” she murmurs back.  Her lips long to brush the shell of his ear, but it’s hard to completely overcome the tight leash she’s held over her behavior for so long.  With a hint of mockery, she tacks on, “Sir.”  

“Did your mission go well?” he asks as they slowly pull apart.

“It wasn’t difficult,” she answers.  Roy holds her at arm’s length now, searching her face with his eyes.  She ponders how much to tell him.  What he’s really asking is, Were you safe?   When his gaze meets her own, wondering, she feels the flicker of a spark.  “And it wasn’t dangerous.”

“Diplomatic, then,” he determines, satisfied.  “Probably for the best you don’t tell me the details unless absolutely necessary.  If Grumman realized we shared the same intelligence…”

It’s a relief to be reminded they’re of the same mind.  “Agreed.”   

As he leads her a few steps further into their campsite, an odd, disquieting feeling appears in Riza’s body.  It’s as though she’s just seen a wolf emerge from the shadows, unnerving in its sly abruptness.  There’s something familiar about the sensation, but she can't identify where she recognizes it.  She chews her lip.

“You took your hair down,” Roy observes.  His voice echoes a little, resonant in the quiet forest.  It usually comforts her, but it’s as though the sound merely echoes in the pit that has opened in her stomach.

“I did,” is all Riza can manage.  She casts her senses outward, searching for what might have set off the alarm bells ringing in her head.

“I like it,” he tries again.  “It’s beautiful.  I don’t see you like this often enough.”   

“Thank you,” she replies, but she hears the faintness in her voice and knows immediately that Roy does, too.  

The first clue is in the air.  The quality of it has changed from cool and crisp to something thicker and heavier.  Smoke fills Riza’s nostrils, acrid and astringent.  The embers of a campfire glow in a small pit just a few steps ahead.  

“I fixed us some dinner,” Roy offers.  “I thought you might be hungry.  It’s not much, but I tried.”

It sounds like he’s underwater.  His words don’t quite reach her brain the way that they should, as if they’ve struck a barrier and been sent away.  The only thing she can detect is his lack of sheepishness.  What would be shame has been replaced with his concern.  God, she really doesn’t want him to worry.  What the hell is going on?

Waiting in a small warming pot are two large potatoes, looking dark and plump.  Riza can see fixings for them poking out of a forgotten bag a few feet away:  sprigs of parsley, the rind of a pale white cheese, a stick of hard salami.  His thoughtfulness and willingness to attempt something out of his wheelhouse should touch her.  But all she can smell is the ash and smoke.  Her appetite is gone in a flash.

She tries a smile but knows it comes out as a grimace.  Eager to get out from under Roy’s watchful eye, Riza ducks past him and sits on one of the nearby logs.  With the toe of her boot, she pulls the warming pot in her direction.

“I’m impressed,” she says, and she is, honestly. Usually, Roy can barely heat a can of soup.  But how is she supposed to play at eating dinner when the scene is suddenly much too familiar for comfort?      

Roy sits down heavily on a log across from her.  She can hear his measured breath, feel him weighing his words.  “Are you sure everything was okay on your mission?”  

She can’t seem to meet his gaze.  Hot frustration and shame sear the back of Riza’s throat.  They have one weekend – really, one evening and the following morn – and somehow she’s screwing it up.

Her silence only serves to agitate Roy.  He shifts his weight, puts his chin in his palms, and stares directly at her.  “Did one of the representatives try to pull something funny?”  His tone is shifting, turning darker.  “Fucking politicians, absolutely unbel–”

“Roy,” she mutters.  “Nothing happened on the mission.  I promise.”  Reluctantly, she drags her eyes upward.  She means to give him a reassuring smile, a tip of the chin, or at least a spark of connection so he knows she’s being honest.  But she can’t help but look a little beyond him, just over his shoulder, and there it is: a tent, made of pale orange linen, squat and discreet and as familiar to her now as it had been years ago in Ishval.

Lack of appetite sours into abject nausea.  It’s as though the world tilts on its axis; what made sense and was good and right and true and safe is now so deadly wrong she’s not sure she can breathe.  She can’t look at that tent.        

Roy’s eyes narrow.  He’s definitely beginning to suspect.  Suddenly, it feels more important than ever that he does not know what bothers her.  She shouldn’t drag him into the mud with her.  She shouldn’t ruin his good time.  And even worse, she doesn’t want to make him feel responsible like she imagines he will.   Her weakness is not his problem.

“Let’s eat, okay?”  she forces herself to say.  With all her willpower, Riza manages to inject optimism, sunshine, into her tone.  “It’s not often we have a meal together like this.”

Roy gives her a small, encouraging smile, but Riza knows immediately he’s forcing it, too.  Damn it.   “And even less often without Hayate begging underfoot, huh?”

“He doesn’t beg,” she sniffs, trying to sound imperious.  Reaching out, she pulls the discarded pack to her side.  After a moment of rifling, she finds a small tin plate.  “Or he wouldn’t, if you hadn’t taught him that sort of behavior works on you.” 

Roy’s expression is one of genuine amusement this time as he takes the plate and the warming dish from her.  “I got these potatoes from a farmer on the side of the road.  Isn’t that quaint?  Don’t see that much in Central City.”

“No, you don’t,” she agrees.  Riza draws a pocket knife from her belt.  Carefully, she splits the potato open from end to end.  The steam hits her face like a buffet of wind, hot and muggy as the Ishvalan desert.  She’s reminded of a throat split open.  Her unoccupied hand flutters to her neck, lingers on the scar tissue.    

Roy bites his lip but keeps his gaze steady on her as he offers a few chunks of the salami.  Delicately, she receives them in her open palm.  It seems wrong to touch him, feeling this way.  She worries if the taint, the stain, the poison that’s inside her will seep into him.  He can’t be ruined.  There’s not much else left for her that hasn’t been.  “Thank you,” she murmurs as she adds the protein to her meal.  He’s too good for her.

“It makes me think of Resembool.  Reole.  All those little towns.  I guess this is what they do without grocery stores, eh?”  Roy remarks.

It’s a fair comparison.  But it makes Riza think of Pendleton, the sleepy village where she grew up.  She could feel her father’s fingers, too tight on her wrist, as he pulled her through the cramped, overly loud town square.  The way the vendors would shy away from him, from them both, but they were more than willing to take his money for bags of nitrogen-rich soil or sulfurous eggs.  And the way some of them would look at her, eyes brimming with such pity.  Those looks hurt almost as much as the resentful – sometimes hateful – ones Berthold shot her when she made the mistake of reminding him she existed.  Why?  Why all of these memories now?

Her stomach twists with nausea even as she tries to chew on a mouthful of dinner.  Suddenly, she can smell the sick room her mother died in, the way she’d scoured the pots she’d vomited into but could never entirely erase the stink.  The sour reek of her freshly tattooed back, burning and infected, and with only her father’s slap-dash alchemized medicine to heal it.  No one could know.         

And then someone did know.  Roy, sweet as a summer breeze, Roy, who treated her with kindness and delicacy she hadn’t known since her mother had passed.  Roy, who made her feel wanted in one familiar way and desired in another new, exciting way.  And the world seemed beautiful and hopeful and alive with possibilities.  Until it crumbled around her like smoldering ashes.  If she’d thought her mother’s death and her rotting back would never leave her mind, what was she to do with the odor of thousands of charred Ishvalan corpses?

“Riza.”  It’s Roy’s voice, forceful now, tight with concern.  “What’s going on?”

Her hands are shaking, she realizes abruptly as she drops her fork.  Her voice shakes, too, when she finally speaks.  The words fall out of her like an avalanche.  “I can’t sleep in that tent.”

Understanding – confirmation – spreads over Roy’s features.  He looks over his shoulder at the tent and mutters a curse.  “I’m so sorry.  Goddamnit, how could I be so stupid?”

  Hell, he probably hadn’t even recognized the tent as the one soldiers had been issued in Ishval – as an alchemist, he’d been permitted nicer shelter on the front than she ever had. Befuddlement briefly replaces the sheet of ice settled over Riza’s skin.  Roy hadn’t done anything wrong.  

    When she remembers to speak, she finds Roy already at work, tearing the tent down.  Like a man possessed, he pulls at the stakes and rips at the fabric, the shelter crumbling beneath his capable hands.  He’s trying to help her.  Roy has tried to help her every moment of every day since he’d first shown up on her father’s doorstep.  A light in the darkness.  “But I don’t want to leave,” Riza whispers.  

It’s true, she realizes as she says it.  Taking a deep breath, Riza thinks of the cool embrace of the fog.  The coniferous trees, silent and nonjudgmental, their evergreen scent a mirror of Roy’s.  She can be safe here.  She is safe here.  

Roy exhales, pausing his labor to gaze at her softly.  “I’m glad to hear that.  You’re so brave.”  He gives her a gentle smile, one of pleasure but also relief, as he tugs at one of the tent poles.  “Always have a contingency plan, right?”

Riza smiles back, real this time.  It’s a command he regularly doles out to their team.  Relief washes over her. “And you do?”

“I’ve got one in mind,” he replies.  “Honestly, it’s what I should’ve done to begin with.  Can you eat?”

Her stomach still feels like a hollowed-out stone, but she feels guilty letting Roy’s hard work go to waste.  And he won’t quit nagging her if she doesn’t at least try.  Growing up being fed three square meals a day by a loving, if nontraditional, family had turned Roy into a mother hen, at least about food.    

Sawing off a hunk of potato and cheese, Riza manages a weakly cheeky “Yes, sir” as she chews.  He gives her a look as he begins folding the tent into a neat square.  When he’s done, he sits beside her on the bench rather than across from her.  The heat of his body seeps into hers, steadfast and familiar.  She leans against his side, craving as much contact as possible, her reservations about appearances buried beneath her need for comfort.  

At first, Roy stiffens a little, almost as if surprised.  But then he melts against her, his arm coming up to curl around her waist and pull her even closer.  Riza realizes abruptly that she can better feel the weight of him; so often, when they touched, the thick fabric of their uniforms muddled the feeling of their bodies.

“I wasn’t thinking,” he says softly, his gaze resting on the orange-and-gray embers of the low burning fire.  “I’m sorry, Honey.”   

A rush of warmth flows through Riza’s body.  It’s his most private, most tender pet name for her.  It’s her favorite food and, so Roy claims, the color of her hair.  It reassures her even more than his physical presence.  It’s a word he uses only in their most private moments. 

She exhales slowly, feeling grounded, real again.  “It’s alright.  I didn’t – I didn’t expect it to affect me like that.  You certainly couldn’t have known.”

He inhales the air she exhaled, as if greedy for her very breath, and suddenly there’s an urgency to him that wasn’t there before.  Roy turns his cheek so that his nose rests in her hair. His lips are soft against the crown of her head.  “And yet I’m still remorseful.  Can I make it right?”

Riza feels heat in her cheeks.  She threads her fingers with his.  “I think so.”

He squeezes her hand.  “Did you bring pajamas?  I think you might feel better in more comfortable clothes.”

“I did,” she nods.  The gears in her mind turn, considering.  “But where are we going to sleep now?”

“Go change,” he tells her softly.

The comfort of habit, the familiarity of following orders, takes over, and Riza dutifully gathers her overnight bag and finds her way back to the small concrete restroom.  She still finds no sign of any other campers on her walk over.  Despite the soft soles of her shoes, her footsteps scuff and echo on the bathroom floor.  The silence would be unnerving to many, but Riza finds relief in it.  In silence, she can always hear danger coming.  

In the cloudy old mirror hanging above the steadily dripping sink, Riza finds her reflection wan and tired-looking.  Her hair hangs in a curtain over her shoulders.  The tell-tale bruise from the butt of her rifle pounding near her breastbone is faded to almost vanishing; she hasn’t had to shoot much lately, thankfully.  The glint of her earrings is the only adornment anywhere to be found.  She’d considered wearing lingerie beneath her work clothes, but it seemed too inappropriate to bring on a mission.     

With only Roy seemingly around to see her, she pulls her nightgown and nothing else over her body, modesty mostly forgotten.  Riza had seen the bedrolls tucked against his backpack and knew them to be warm and surprisingly plush.  Besides, she has no intention of sleeping anywhere outside of his arms.  She won’t catch a chill.

Roy’s eyes widen a little when he sees her approaching.  She’d hoped to surprise him, but he’s waiting for her just outside the rest area.  He offers her his hand.  “Come with me?”

She takes it, wordlessly threading her fingers with his.  His thumb rubs over a callous on her palm thoughtfully.  “Maybe one day my hands will feel like this,” he muses.  “I’d like that, I think.  Feel like I’m doing something constructive for once.  I could build us a house by hand like Fullmetal did for Ms. Winry.  Except I’d build us a mansion.”    

A snort escapes her nose, but sadness gnaws beneath the amusement, sour and resentful.  “Roy…” she sighs.  “You know that’s not our future.”

“Shh,” is his response, silky-smooth as his fine, unmarred fingers.  “We’re here to pretend, aren’t we?  So let me tell you a story.”

A spear of sunlight lances through the pines.  It turns his dark hair almost blue, iridescent like a raven’s feather.  He looks so handsome she could almost imagine him a prince, leading her away to a castle in the forest, like the stories she’d devoured as a child while curled in her mother’s bed after her passing.  They’d been her escape, her safe haven.   

Meeting Roy for the first time all those years ago, learning his quirks and interests and dreams, she’d come to believe for a time that he was that prince, come to spirit her to comfort and glory and a better future for both of them.  That was the lie she’d told herself, up until the very last moment before she’d pulled the trigger on a target in her sights.

After that, her life had two distinct parts:  a before, and an after.

Here, though, in the mists of a remote Cretan wood, Roy’s breath on her cheek and his warmth at her side, she’s not so sure there’s no way to reconcile the two.  Her dreams of a bright, hopeful future, of a warm home with a living mother and herself a happy child, and a brilliant alchemist father who had time for both his work and for his family, normalcy – would never come to fruition.  But she had found her prince.  He was both dark and bright.  And although she could never entirely escape the hells of her past, his presence at her side made them burn a little less hot. 

A gentle breeze lifts the hair away from her face.  The air smells clean and clear; no more smoke on the wind.  “Okay,” she replies, and follows him.

“I’d build it on the cliffside of some Aerugonian coastal town,” he starts.  “A place where the roar of the waves on the beach could always reach your ears.  It’d be sunny and beautiful every summer, but never so hot your hair would stick to your brow.  We’d walk down to the shore every week for a picnic.”

“Who’s fixing that?” she wonders, unable to picture either of them cooking over a stovetop, regardless of how palatial a kitchen they had.

“There’d be a cafe,” he explains as they walk beneath the trees.  “They’d have orange rolls and fresh fruit and ham and cheese sandwiches for us.  Hell, they’d even throw in some biscuits for Hayate.  The owners would know us by name and have a parcel for the Mustangs set out at 11 A.M. sharp every Saturday.”

“Good call,” she replies.  If she breathes deeply, she can almost smell the water.  “Maybe a bottle of red, too?”

“Certainly.  And we’d go to the beach just to feel the sand between our toes.  It’d be too cold to swim regularly, but we’d brave it from time to time if there weren’t many other people around to hear you make fun of me for squealing.”

“And you absolutely would,” Riza chuckles, nudging him with her elbow.  His side is sturdy and solid, the fabric of his coat silken against the bare skin of her arm.

“If we weren’t swimming or eating, we could toss a ball for Hayate.”  Roy’s voice cracks suddenly, and he squeezes with a bit more force on her hand.  His following words are barely whispered.  “Or a kid.  If you wanted.”

Riza’s chest feels hot and cold at the same time.  He’s pushing her, just a little, with this.  At first, the thought stings like a cat scratch.  But as she focuses her mind, the image becomes clearer:  a sandy-haired, wiry child with Roy’s glimmering dark eyes and good humor, tearing after Hayate’s graying form as they raced over the gentle dunes.  The way their laugh would peal, carried with the sea breeze and free of worry or fear.  Suddenly, the idea leaves her lighter than it does heavy.

“You know I do,” Riza murmurs back, and she blinks slowly, as if it will be real and waiting for her when she opens her eyes.

It isn’t, of course.  But she can hear Roy’s love – it’s palpable, suffusing each of his words – and it’s enough for now.  “Me too.”

They walk in silence for a few more minutes.  The trees are beginning to thin, and the wind is growing stronger.  The final rays of sunlight are smudged in vibrant reds and purples across the sky.  A glimmering light blinds Riza for a moment, and she abruptly realizes Roy has walked them to the shore of a lake.  

“Where is everyone?” she finally wonders aloud.  The scenery is so beautiful she can’t imagine there aren’t others who’d love to share the visage.  The remaining trees have low-reaching branches that hover just above the placid surface of the water.  Soft peeps of spring frogs form a muted symphony around them.  

Roy’s hand leaves her fingers and meanders to the small of her back.  “I might’ve rented out the whole campground.”  

“You – what?” she blusters, rounding on him.  

A blush fans across Roy’s cheeks, and his other hand nervously rifles through his hair.  “I just figured – I mean, in the interest of privacy…”

Suddenly, a laugh bubbles up from Riza’s chest.  It startles her, but she relishes it, savoring the feeling of her anxieties evaporating, floating up and away with each breath.  It’s senseless to be angry at him for spending money cavalierly.  Riza is struck with relief, that things like this are now her greatest things to fear when it comes to Roy.  “Okay,” she finally tells him.  “What now?”

He gapes at her for a moment, obviously surprised by her lack of resistance.  But his charm is quick to return.  “I thought we could come look at the lake in the morning after our coffee.  But I don’t see why we can’t stay here overnight.  After you,” he gestures, and when he steps aside, Riza can see a spacious hammock strung between two sturdy pines, just a few feet away.

The fabric is a dark, mossy green, discreet, and almost hidden by the shade and gloam.  The hammock and knotting look sturdy, the linens only barely shifting with the breeze.  The question of whether it would sway with their movements if they were to make love pops unbidden into Riza’s mind, and she feels heat bloom in her face.  

Luckily, Roy is too preoccupied to tease her.  He’s busily tugging a sleeping bag out, smoothing it haphazardly over the dip in the hammock.  “I forgot our damn pillows,” he huffs in obvious consternation.  “I can run back and –”

“Don’t worry about it,” Riza replies.  She follows behind, smoothing the rumpled path he laid with her signature neatness and care.  By the time her hands meet his at the bottom of the sack, it’s smooth as a pristine sheet, if slightly puffier.  “It should be soft enough inside.  Besides, you have a comfortable chest if memory serves.”

Roy beams.  “Care to test that hypothesis?”

Wordlessly, Riza slips into the folds of the sleeping bag.  It’s roomy and surprisingly cushy.  It should retain heat well if the night happens to grow particularly chilly.  “You’ll need to take your jacket off first,” she determines.  Remembering Roy’s extreme aversion to cold when he gives her a beseeching look, she adds, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep you warm.”

Her encouragement proves very effective, as before Riza can utter another word, he’s down to his usual baggy white undershirt and boxers and clambering into the hammock beside her.

Immediately, his familiar scent suffuses Riza’s awareness.  Sharp, sweet, refreshing without alarming her senses.  Secure in the knowledge they were completely alone, she buries her head in the hollow of his throat.    

He wraps his arms tightly around her, folding her against the firm plane of his body.  His forearms are dimpled with gooseflesh and Riza can’t suppress her giggle, muffled against his chest.  She pulls one of his hands to her lips, lets them brush along the chill bumps and ridges on his wrist.  “You really are cold, aren’t you?”

“Not for long if you’ll be still and let me hold you,” he replies.  His voice is a rumble, reverberating thickly next to her ear.  Placated, Riza snuggles against him.

His heart thrums slowly and evenly, as constant as the tides.  Knowing she can fall asleep with it as her lullaby comforts her even more than their assured privacy.  They don’t speak for a long time, barely even moving against each other.  It’s enough to feel Roy’s breath on the crown of her head, to warm his body with the heat of her own.

Eventually, Riza says, “It wouldn’t be a long drive to a chalet in the mountains.  From our home on the Aerugonian coast, I mean.”  

Her fingers are resting beneath the hem of his shirt, tangled in the soft hair that grows on his lower abdomen.  She flexes them, lets them dip a little lower.  She can feel him tense, his breath hitching.  “Really?  I never fancied you a skier, Lieu– sorry.  I mean, Riza.”

“I could learn,” she replies mildly.  His hands move to match hers, splaying on her belly over her thin nightgown.  “But I’d want to go for other reasons.  To see the quiet snow falling on the ground.  A world covered in winter.”

“Sounds cruel,” he murmurs back.  Riza isn’t sure why he’s whispering to her in their solitude, but she likes the sound of it, the way his breath and the words within it curl over her like fog.  “But beautiful.”

“Not cruel,” she corrects him.  Her lips drag along his throat, and the goosebumps she’d tamed with the heat of her body reappear.  “Just cold.  But there would be hot cocoa to drink.  Or mulled wine.”

She looks up at him, and he’s waiting for her, his chin turned down so that he can kiss her slowly.  “I can almost taste it,” Roy tells her softly, his tongue pressing gently into her mouth.  “So sweet and warm.”

“We could sit by the fireplace, too,” she continues as Roy trails his fingers slowly upward until they hover on the underside of her breast.  “A grand hearth, stone mantle, and everything.  Watch the embers glow and leave the cold for the outside.”

“I don’t need a fire,” he mumbles breathlessly as he palms her.  She can feel him stirring, pressed against her thighs.  “God, you’re more than enough for me.”

Breathily, Riza sighs into his mouth as Roy’s lithe fingers brush over a nipple.  “Would you rent the whole chalet, too?”

She’d meant it as a joke, but Roy’s ferocity is surprising.  “I’ll do anything you goddamn well ask.”  His touch is suddenly indelicate, fierce and desperate.  His other hand rucks up the edge of her nightgown till it’s riding high on her hips.  Riza’s legs tangle with Roy’s, bare on bare.     

“I don’t need anything but this,” she tells him truthfully.  His pulse throbs beneath her palms as she touches his neck, his cheeks.  Their eyes lock and he pauses, studying her carefully.

“I love you,” he says simply, as though there are no other words to be found.

Unbidden, shame surges, hot and aching in Riza’s throat.  “Even though I’ve ruined our evening?”

“We’ve both done far worse and loved each other still.”  He’s partly joking but partly serious, and his point is well-taken.  He smooths a stubborn thread of hair out of her eyes.  Firmly, Roy adds, “And for what it’s worth, you’ve hardly ruined the evening.”

She can feel tears beading at the corners of her eyes, and so she nuzzles into Roy’s neck to hide them.  “Can you finish the story?” she wonders meekly. 

“Of course,” he replies as he pulls her face upward.  “But I need to know you’re listening.”

His lips are gentle but firm as he kisses her again.  “We’d have a couple of sips of that mulled wine in front of the fire,” he starts, letting his tongue tickle the corner of her mouth.  “I could probably spare the cens for a cabin for Havoc and Catalina if they agreed to watch the kids, so we’d be totally alone.  I’m renting a whole chalet, after all.”  

Riza shows her amusement by digging her nails into Roy’s hips.  Rebecca and Jean’s twins were a hassle already; she couldn’t imagine the chaos they’d wreak if any child of Roy’s was thrown into the mix.  

Roy growls in approval, bucking into her.  He’s still a little stiff, and hardening more each time their lips touch.  “Would I have you by the fireside?”  he muses, one of his hands rubbing up and up her exposed thigh.  “It’d be tempting.  Very romantic.  And warm, of course.”

“The bear rug wouldn’t freak you out?”  Riza teases.  “Visions of Briggs and all that?”  She can’t seem to leave his throat; she loves the feeling of his quickening pulse and the gentle bobbing of his Adam’s apple with each word.     

“Please,” he scoffs.  “The firelight in your eyes would be too beautiful.  Like bourbon in a fine crystal glass.  I couldn’t dream of looking at anything else.”

“Nothing?”  Riza presses, and pulls one of his hands back to her breast.

Humming in pleasure, Roy squeezes gently, thumbing over her in just the right way to make her sigh.  “Maybe not nothing,” he concedes.  “But I’d take you to bed before I got too distracted.  I’d pick you up and carry you, lay you down nice and gentle on our four-poster.  Very grandiose.”  

“Don’t trip on the stairs,” she starts, but her words are cut short by her uncontrolled groan as Roy suddenly pinches her nipple.     

“Be kind to me, please,” he says.  It’s somewhere between a plea and an order, and the heat that had been pooling in Riza’s belly for most of the evening suddenly ignites.

“I’m sorry, Roy,” she says softly, knowing he understands.  Her kiss is the softest, tenderest movement she can make.  “I’ll be good.”  

“You are good,” he tells her fiercely, and he moves from her lips to her neck, trailing gentle bites.  “Always good.  Too good for me.”

Now Riza is the one turned vehement.  She thrashes around in his grasp til he’s looking at her, startled at her sudden unwieldiness.  “If I don’t get to be self-pitying, you don’t, either, Roy Mustang.”

  Unbothered by the forcefulness of her tone, Roy’s eyes turn up in soft acknowledgment and he kisses her forehead.  “I hear you.”

Placated, Riza returns to running her nails up and down his back in thin lines.  She offers him her throat for more attention.  “As you were, then.”  

“Yes, ma’am.”  Roy’s mouth is hotter on her skin, his lips slick and puffy from their kissing.  “That bed would almost swallow you. It'd be so plush, but I’d hold you up in my arms and pull your nightgown up, kind of like this…”

His hand moves from her breast down to her hips, tugging the hem of her nightgown up so far it rests on her waist.  Riza watches with great pleasure as the expression on Roy’s face shifts from self-satisfied confidence to thrilled shock.  

“Roy?” she prompts, but her question is torn away from her in a gasp as his greedy fingers rush to pet the bare skin between her legs.

“Devious girl,” he practically purrs.  His touch is agonizingly measured, his index drawing small circles on the innermost part of her thigh.  “I figured no bra in your nightgown, but no panties, either?  What a lovely surprise.”

“I wanted to take my turn at strategy,” she says, near breathless with want.  “How’d I do?”  

“I’m no enemy,” he growls back, moving impossibly closer.  His chest is sturdy against her breasts, and she can feel the heaviness of his exhalations.  “But you’ve certainly caught me unaware.”

“I’ll call it a victory, then,” she whispers.  “Even though we’re unmatched.”  She pulls at his shirt.  It feels very much in the way.

He squirms out of it effortlessly.  Riza knows well enough what the muscles on his back look like, and she pictures them flexing and stretching.  The image is delicious, and she feels the coil in her belly tightening.  Her hands finally leave his throat, devouring the threads and cords and ripples of his abdomen.

“No victory,” Roy huffs, his voice low and powerful like a growl, “until my name is on your lips.”

His fingers finally find her entrance, and the feeling is electric.  He strokes his index languorously over the length of her slit.  “You’ll have to make me,” Riza says, but defiance is not her style, at least not when they’re like this, and her voice is already reedy with need.  

“Oh, I’m more than capable,” Roy replies.  The timbre of his words sends a shiver down Riza’s spine.  “Especially when you’re already so wet for me.”

Heat floods Riza’s cheeks and ears, but not more so than the fire that’s already simmering in her groin and belly.  She parts her legs a little more to grant him better access.  With her nose, she nudges against Roy’s cheek, asking for more kisses.

This time, he dominates her, sliding his tongue forcefully into her mouth.  One hand sweeps up to tangle in her hair, pressing her face against his lips.  The other delves, first one gentle finger and then a second, more forceful, within her.  The immediate sensation of fullness forces a groan from her throat.  Roy swallows it, and she can feel his approving grin press against her cheek.

She’s powerless now, and the chance to relinquish control is as refreshing as the gust of lake wind blowing against her exposed throat.  “More,” she whimpers, all traces of shame blasted away by the cascade of need between her hips.

“It’s such a shame I can’t eat your perfect pussy in this hammock.  I’ll have so much more room to work in that four-poster,” he murmurs between hot and slippery kisses.  Infuriatingly, he keeps the movements of his fingers mostly unhurried, working in and out of her like the slow sway of the reeds by the shore.  She whines again, and he half-chuckles, lets his tongue slowly trace her lips.  “I should rephrase, shouldn’t I?  It’s not work, never work to taste how sweet you are.  I’d devour you on that bed, hold you tight around the middle so you couldn’t get away from me.”

She’s a little frustrated at what she knows is a deliberate misinterpretation of her request.  Still, Riza can’t help but reflexively squeeze tighter around his bare waist, pressing against Roy as though to reassure him she’s going nowhere.  Against her thigh, she can feel his cock pushing against her skin, the only sign he’s as desperate and hungry for her as she is for him.  Somehow, it had popped out of his boxers; she can feel the urgent, hot head rubbing at the soft flesh of her thigh.  “Please,” she whispers.

  Roy’s voice is still even and controlled, a little honeyed when he says, “I want your legs wrapped around my face.  I want you writhing beneath me.  I want to hear you moan.” 

With his last words, he finally puts his thumb where she wants it, resting snugly on the hood of her clit.  Moan she does, high-pitched and urgent and so loudly her cheeks immediately flame. “Music to my ears,” Roy mutters.  He circles her sensitive core gently at first but quickly ramps up as he realizes the state she’s in.  A guttural sound of approval makes her melt even more.  “You’re sopping wet for me, Riza.  What a good girl you are.”

Riza mewls at his throat, focus slipping away from her rapidly like water rushing downstream.  She’s helpless in Roy’s hands, and it feels so fucking good.  Her pulse jackhammers in her throat and chest.  Roy’s free arm comes down from her face to tweak one of her nipples through the gown.  Shivering, her own hands scrabble at Roy’s chest, leaving thin red scratches down his front.  She wants to feel him, so close that she forgets herself, so close that they are no longer two separate people, but one.

“Do you think you can cum for me?” he asks, but now his voice is growing a little rougher, his breath heavier and sweet against her lips.

Riza nods soundlessly, but clenches her teeth to resist.  It would be easy to shatter beneath him like this.  Impossibly easy.  But that won’t wipe her mind clean, won’t give her the completeness and satisfaction she craves.  

It’s hard to make demands like this, with Roy knuckle-deep inside her and her clothes rumpled and undone.  But with as much command as she can muster, Riza moves downward, letting her fingers encircle his cock.  It’s warm and taut against her palm, and she swears she can almost feel it twitch.  Roy grunts, and a thrill of satisfaction arcs down Riza’s spine.  For a split second, he’d lost his composure and stopped massaging the walls of her cunt.  Good.  She’ll need him to slow down if she’s to get what she wants.

Pulling his head back, Roy affixes her with a contemplative stare.  His eyes are coal-black and growing harder to see as the sun sets, but still, they shimmer with curiosity.  “Hmm?”

Suddenly feeling shy, Riza casts her glance aside, watching his shoulders rise and fall with each of his ragged breaths.  She can hear the gentle whispering sound of the lake water against the shore.  The throbbing warmth of his cock is so inviting.  The way she knows it will fill her, stretch her, leave her so relieved and her mind so deliciously empty.    But Riza has always struggled to ask for what she needs.

Roy’s fingers slide out of her gently, leaving an emptiness so bone-deep it’s painful.  Riza is practically shivering with want.  Almost lazily, Roy brings his index to his lips and licks away her fluids as thoughtfully and as delicately as a cat might lick its paw.  “You’ll have to use your words,” he says.  Part of it sounds like he’s teasing her.  He probably is, just a little bit.  But beneath that, she can hear the gentle encouragement, the belief he has in her strength.

“Can we –” she mumbles, searching for the words.  Her hand slides up his length, pausing to let herself thumb over his swollen tip.  A few beads of pre-cum await her.  Riza’s whole body tingles, her core alight with insistent, undeniable need.  She rubs the drops of fluid into the thin, tight skin of his shaft.  “Together?” she finally asks hopefully, counting on him to understand.

Roy smirks a little and smooths her hair away from her damp temples.  “You know that’s hard to do, Riza,” he says gently.  But his eyes are soft and inviting.  He’d give her anything she asked for – she just had to ask .             

“I want to try,” she manages, and the smile he replies with is reward enough for all the effort it took to get there.

“Come here, then.”  Roy rolls onto his back, jostling her abruptly.  The heavy sleeping bag material flops off her shoulders.  Riza feels the chill of the wind on her back, but it’s the feeling of being seen that really makes her bristle.  The nightgown only covers the lowest part of her tattoo and scars, and there’ll be nothing at all to cover it if she’s to do as she wishes.  She’s so practiced at hiding them – it feels wrong .

“You can do this,” Roy says softly.  His sense for her thoughts is uncanny.  He rubs his warm hands up and down one of her arms, pausing to squeeze her shoulder.  “It’s just you and me here.  You’re safe.”

Nodding more to reassure herself than anything, Riza rolls too, kicking at the heavy sleep sack to free her legs. 

“We’re in our own little world,” Roy continues, the deep timbre of his voice soothing her frayed nerves.  “The chalet.  The coast.  This forest.  Wherever you’d like.  But there’s only now.  Only this moment.  Only us.”

His words are a drumbeat, guiding her through the motions.  She slithers over the front of his chest as he murmurs his encouragement, the heat from his skin burning away the chill of her fear.  Briefly, she sits on his abdomen, kissing the curve of his arms as they lift her nightgown up and away, leaving her bare to the world.  The few moments it takes Roy to fully wriggle out of his boxers are enough for her to take a few deep breaths, acclimating herself to the sensation of being out in the open.  

It wasn’t just her desire to hide the scars and tattoos – all her life, discretion and the ability to blend with the background had been a life-or-death skill.  Wearing a stoic facade, wrapped in the jagged, choking tendrils of Pride’s shadow-shape.  Crouching on sand-buffeted crags, her rifle heavy in her hands.  Slipping, quiet as a church mouse, from room to room in the dusty expanse of her father’s dilapidated manse.  She’ll never be a showy woman; never crave dozens of eyes on her.  To be known was to be endangered.     

But Roy knows her, inside and out.  He’s drinking her in with his dark, almond-shaped eyes.  Hunger swims there, eager and rapacious.  But beneath that, in the depths, is love and certainty, a softness so tender it makes her shudder.  Riza doesn’t believe she deserves this.  But now, she craves it so badly there’s no room in her mind for doubt or shame.  She can feel the brush of Roy’s knuckles on the underside of her thigh, and she knows his hand is steadying his cock, holding it in place for her.  There’s a momentary flash of jealousy, of greed – that cock is hers to touch, to please.  She can’t help but let out a snort.  So desperate for this man’s body is she that she envies his own hand.

A quiet hiss seeps from her lips as she lowers herself slowly onto him.  Roy is quiet, studying her intently, his eyes flitting across her features.  She knows he seeks signs of pain or discomfort, but in truth, she feels only relief.  The shape of him is even more familiar than her own.  She could find him in absolute darkness.

He wasn’t exaggerating about the state he’d put her in; though she tries to relish a slow entry, his cock slides inside her as easily and familiarly as a gun in one of her holsters.  Still, the stretch is delicious and almost overwhelming.  And when he’s fully hilted inside her, she swears she can see stars.

Only when she exhales and meets his gaze does Roy move.  A gentle smile graces his lips as he reaches up to touch her.  The pads of his fingers skim up over her waist, feather-light.  Meandering over her ribcage, they circle the globes of her breasts.  “Gorgeous,” he murmurs, and his voice is awe-struck, nearly breathless.  “Perfect.  So perfect.”

The praise makes Riza glow, her chest full and heavy with pride.  His eyes are the only ones she wants upon her.  As she acclimates to the feeling of him filling her, she rocks her hips slightly.  The sensation is deeply satisfying, his cock rubbing against the sweetest spot inside her body.

Roy shifts beneath her, patient but from the look on his face, growing less so.  The way his hips beneath her force her thighs apart creates a satisfyingly achy tug.  A few beads of sweat are gathered where Roy’s hair is plastered to his forehead.  He thrusts once, or tries to; the hammock wobbles beneath the power of the movement.  

“Fuck,” he grumbles, pouting.  

He’s cute when he’s frustrated.  Riza can’t help but lean down to peck his flushed cheeks.  Her body glides over his cock smoothly, a long and lithe motion that takes all the annoyance out of his tone.  He makes a soft sound, somewhere between a growl and a groan.

“Warming up, sir?  I thought you hated the cold,” she whispers, kissing away the droplets of sweat.  His taste is salty and satisfying, a signature flavor she knows as essentially his.  

The sharp parts of his nails leave half-moon prints on her thighs.  “I said no titles tonight, remember, Ri–?”  

She kisses him long and deep on the mouth, hushing his complaints.  Her tongue explores the soft inside of his cheek as his arms leave her legs and come to wrap around her waist.  Pinned to his chest, Riza can’t tell whose heartbeat she feels:  his, or her own.  “You’re right,” she acquiesces.  “It’s too easy to forget.”

“I’ll forgive you,” he says as he smooths her hair back, “if you ride me until we cum together.  I’m afraid I seem to be a bit indisposed, or else I’d take care of you.”

Desire blooms again, hearing him put spoken words to her wish.  “I’m sorry,” she mumbles, blushing.  He usually enjoys taking charge of their lovemaking.

Roy pushes her chin up so that he can look into her eyes.  “No apologizing.  You’re perfect, and I’m going to love this.”

Then he kisses her once more, sweet but hot, as he moves to cup her ass with his palms.  Riza knows this command as well as she’d know any he issued in the field:  get going.   His need for her, quiet but insistent, only deepens her arousal.

Starting slowly, she relishes the feeling of Roy’s cock gradually unsheathing from within her as she slides up his body.  She pauses when she knows he’s almost out, grinning down at Roy, almost giddy with power.  Roy growls playfully, his face scrunching into a look of distaste, but eventually, he smiles back, unmoving beneath her.  He’s indulging her, certainly – and Riza wonders how long she can test his patience.  

When she slides back down his length, Roy releases a guttural sound that makes her blood flame.  The faint swell of his Adam’s apple bobbing at his throat as he swallows – he’s so handsome she can barely believe he loves her.  Feeling empowered, she stretches, pushing herself up to an almost seated position so she can look down on the expanse of his body. 

Immediately, his hands shoot to cup her breasts, and Riza finds herself smirking in satisfaction.  For once, Roy blushes, although he doesn’t remove his hands.  “What?” he splutters.

Riza can’t think of a pithy response, try as she might.  What would be the reason?  As if she had any objections to how fiercely he wanted her.

Soothed, Roy gentles his touch and traces the slope of her skin.  “I can’t help how beautiful you are.  I can only be thankful.”  As Riza moves again, rocking against his hips, Roy groans.  “So thankful.  God, you’re stunning.”     

Gradually, they settle into a rhythm, Riza slowly gliding up and down his cock as Roy strokes her skin.  Sometimes, she leans down to gently kiss at the mantle of his shoulders and the blush-warmed curve of his cheeks.  Mostly, they watch each other through heavy-lidded eyes, occasionally smiling softly as the other makes a muffled sound of pleasure.  When the wind blows, it brushes against the flesh of her bare back, and Riza can almost pretend as though there’s nothing there but smooth, unmarred skin.  When her hands press against Roy’s abdomen for balance, she can almost imagine that there’s only muscle beneath her, not the hardened patch of purpled scar tissue just below her palms.  The quiet hoot of an owl startles her briefly, but she has Roy to squeeze her hand and nod, understanding and reassurance.  The way his palms come to rest on her hips is so delicately effortless.  Carefully, he directs her movements, angling her body just so.  There was a time when she guided him, when he was blind – it makes her all the more grateful for all the many times he guides her, even in the light. 

As sweat dimples on their bodies and her breathing grows heavier with exertion, Roy finally casts her a long, tender look, different from the lust-fueled gazes he’d fed her earlier.  “Honey,” he says quietly but firmly, and she understands.  Their time together is so short, impossibly short, too short.   And yet.

Biting her lip in frustration, she averts her eyes.  “It’s okay,” Roy whispers.  Again, he rubs up and down the curves of her body, covering every inch of her with his warmth.  “There will be other times.  I promise.”  Still, she pauses, desperately clinging on to the moments slipping past them as easily as the wind tousling her hair.  She sits, almost despondent, on his lap.  Unmoving, she tries to memorize the feeling of his cock inside her, the feeling of security and privacy and oneness.  Roy is insistent, his nails pricking at her wrists.  “Don’t deny yourself something rare just because you fear it won’t come again.  It will.  I swear it to you.”

Slowly, she nods her head in reluctant agreement.  Roy releases his grip from her wrist and smooths down her back, brushing feather-light over her goosebump-covered skin.  

Eventually, his fingers come to rest on her mound, tangling gently there in the fine dark hair.  Riza feels a tingle run down her spine as he inches lower, threatening to touch the spot where she wants him most.  “Let me help you?” he asks hopefully, and she responds by bending down to kiss him feverishly.

Their pace is suddenly frantic, desperate; they can both feel the night closing in.  The darkness drapes over them like a thick blanket, and it frees Riza – now she can take him how she pleases.  Her nails rake at his sides, frantically clawing for greater purchase.  Unleashing a peppering of frenzied nips and kisses on his neck, Riza is rewarded with a purr of satisfaction from Roy.  “I’m yours,” he mutters in her ear. “Leave me a reminder, please.”  He’s moving beneath her as best he can, angling his hips carefully to ensure she can take all of him.  “I want to see where your mouth was when we go home – when I can’t have it on me.”

She bites him, hard, quickly soothing the bruise left by her teeth with a gentle sweep of her tongue.  Roy lets out a hoarse bark of pain and pleasure; now one of his hands is back at her breast, rolling and massaging before eventually pinching.  And the other – God, the other – has sunk low enough to finally deliver the release she’s craved all evening. 

He presses his thumb to her clit, at first rubbing gently.  But she’s hungry now, ravenous, miles away from any thought other than desire, and so she ruts against him, pushing her hips greedily into his touch.  She grinds against the plane of his abdomen, whining softly, twisting her hips to command his cock to fill her the way she most likes.  Roy listens to her demands, touching her more forcefully, swirling vigorously against her core.  Breathing his scent, musky and sweat-tinged beneath the layer of earthy pine, gives her comfort and satisfaction, and something more primal and possessive.  Ratcheting toward oblivion, Riza clings by a thread.

“Close,” she manages to grind out through her teeth.  Most of her attention is devoted to keeping the right rhythm, a frenzied, tumultuous ride.  “Can you…?”  Her words are desperate pants, animal sounds she’d be embarrassed by if she had any faculties left.  

“You’re enough,” he bites back, using his free arm to clutch her against his chest.  “Just let me – feel you.”

Their slicked skin smooths her movement.  He’s burning hot beneath her, all hard muscle and tangled limbs, thighs clenched under her rolling hips.  His hand trembles against her back slightly, his fingers flexing.  

“Please,” he asks, and she ignites.

The relative silence of the evening is split by the keen of pleasure she makes.  His name is on her lips:  once, twice, thrice.  Roy.  The feeling is enormous: wave after wave of euphoria, and something deeper even than that.  She can’t remember feeling so safe and so free.  It fills her whole chest, blooming upward from her hips, a gale of golden warmth.  For a moment, her entire mind – hell, her entire body – is suffused with what feels like white light.  Nothing remains but the feeling inside her, the pure pleasure and connection that unites them.  Quaking, shaking, quivering all over, she’s relieved by Roy’s hand pressing firmly against her back

As her thighs tense again and a shiver runs down her spine, Roy clenches under her.  His free hand had tangled in her hair at some point, and he fists it, tugging gently, as though trying to tie himself to her.  Beneath her, he bucks wildly, the force of his movement causing the hammock to rock precipitously.  If she focuses, Riza realizes with searing satisfaction, she can feel him throb, the thick pulse of his cock as his orgasm takes him moments after hers.  It is as close as could possibly be hoped for.  He groans, long and low, before silencing himself by putting his teeth tenderly into her shoulder.  His breath comes in hot puffs against her skin.  He’s murmuring something, praise or exaltation; she can’t be sure – her head is still too empty with bliss.  Panting, exhausted, spent, Riza lets the entirety of her weight collapse against his strength.  She feels scalded clean, even as his spend leaks from inside her to coat her inner thighs and the space where they are still joined.  The slow softening she feels from between his legs is soothing, somehow reassuring.  His vulnerability, finally palpable, made hers – which she saw as so shamefully obvious – feel more acceptable.  Her cheeks feel damp.  She can’t tell if she’s been crying or not.      

Riza lies still for a few long minutes, waiting for the rhythm of their heartbeats to match.   Roy seems to understand because he neither fidgets nor protests.  The forest is quiet around them, interrupted only by the occasional sound of the wind in the trees or the chitter of an insect.  Their scents are heavy in the air, musky and warm.  The world feels fragile – but still.

Eventually, she grows dimly aware of the sensation of his fingers on her back, swirling up and down.  She knows he’s following the lines of her tattoo:  tracing the curve of the serpents’ bodies, strumming over the salamander, etching the triangle pattern between her shoulder blades.  His touch feels less distinct to her as it bumps over the scar tissue, but he seems to know his way around the array perfectly despite its long-ago destruction.

“I love you,” he tells her softly.  His lips are on her forehead.    “I’m sorry.”

Fresh tears, hot and unbidden, prick at her eyes.  He shouldn’t have to apologize to her.  She owes him everything.  Riza grits her teeth, lets her nails sink into the meat of his chest.  “Please, Roy.  Stop,”  she manages.  Pushing herself upright, hands braced on his pecs; she looks down on him as the hammock sways.  Her hair, undone and wild, curtains over them as though they were ensconced in golden secrecy.

Roy’s eyes swim with emotion as he looks up at her.  Riza can tell from the set of his mouth he feels guilty.  A wave of exhaustion, partly physical and partly mental, reverberates through her body.  “Don’t deny yourself something rare,” she echoes as she reaches up to cup his rosy cheek in her palm.  She feels him smile softly in her hand.  “My decisions have always been my own.  Being yours is one of the few I don’t regret.”

Placated, he pulls her back down to his chest, where she rests with her hair fanned out over the both of them, his heart thumping quietly next to her ear.  “Are you cold?” he asks softly. “Sleepy?”  The weight of his arms around her waist is warm enough for her, but she draws the sleeping bag blanket up anyway to cover him.  Snuggling against her, despite all the edges and muscles of his body, Roy somehow feels soft, pliant.

“Sort of,” she murmurs, struggling against another rush of exhaustion.  Suppressing a yawn, she says, “I want to hear more about that lodge, though.”

Roy snorts in a good-natured sort of way, and squeezes her even closer.  “All right.  When we check in, the halls will be decorated in rich wine reds and subtle golds.  We’ll have dinner, whatever you like – roast turkey, maybe, a salad with apples and pecans and a nice balsamic.”

“Sounds yummy,” she mumbles, rubbing half-heartedly at her eyes.  “What else?” 

“What else?”  Roy scoffs. “Hmm…everyone will address you as “Madame Mustang.”  And there will be dogs everywhere, great giant fluffy dogs and little wiry yappy dogs, so many damn dogs you’ll waste half our vacation petting each one.”

Riza fights to wakefulness weakly, just indignant enough to protest.  “Now you’re just being silly,” she manages to mumble.  “Be realistic.”

“Realistic, huh?” Roy’s voice is a low rumble, thick and drowsy.  “How about this, then: I will love you beyond life, beyond reason, until I no longer exist.  And that’s the truth.”

Riza sleeps, at peace.