Fic: In The Shadow Of Your Heart
Title: In The Shadow Of Your Heart
Word Count: 532
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Roy/Riza
Summary: The empty streets do nothing to soothe the aching in Roy's heart.
A/N: Check out my fic listing here for more fic!
The walk to Hawkeye’s apartment is paved with familiar streets; at night, empty shops and emptier alleyways that echo Roy’s footsteps with achingly loud thump thump thumps. He walks them with her, sometimes, maybe Thursday when the workload gets heavy. He glances at her waist, her fingertips, lips, elbows and knees that bend gracefully as she strides forward. He makes small talk, asks about her dog, that sort of thing; questions and nonsense that help him ignore the way the streetlights illuminate the look on her face and the feeling in his chest. Hawkeye pretends like she doesn’t know what he’s doing. She always does, but not completely, because sometimes Roy catches her looking at him in the office when it’s quiet and they can hear the atoms that jump between their skin.
He spends an inordinate amount of time hoping that one day those atoms will collide and create a reaction: a galaxy built out of the hours of wanting and feeling, the hours of missed opportunities, a galaxy only for them.
More often than not he walks these streets alone; him, his fear, and the aching that refuses to go away every time he tries to speak her name. One of these days he hopes that the syllables that leave his mouth won’t form any honoraries or formalities, but instead just Riza, just her name as it was spoken to him long, long ago on the front porch of her father’s house. When they first met she had been a tiny thing - all skin and bones and not much different than she is now, except for the things that make it impossible for him to speak her name. Except for everything. Roy wonders if everything is too much, if the differences outweigh the years piled between them, the glue that clings to her back. They’re different people now and different spells danger. They have to tiptoe around headquarters and hope that lazy filing can cover for their recent hobby of treason - a hobby that sometimes involves too many models and not enough glue. It’s tricky business. They don’t have time to walk backwards anymore and relive memories never forgotten (like Sunday afternoon walks to the market or the way her lips tingled against his skin in the summer night air). Everything now is based on the future; the steps they need to take, the precautions, plans for the aftermath and after the aftermath. They can only ever focus on their goal.
(Roy can only ever focus on Hawkeye.)
They walk to her apartment together sometimes, but mostly Roy walks alone. He walks everywhere alone nowadays; alone with his thoughts, alone with his shadow. His shadow takes a decidedly female shape, three steps back; a ghost from his past that will never reconcile because she is there and he is here, loving her entirely too much and yet not enough, because he is loving her and loving the promise of a future that beckons at every corner. He is loving this stupid, naive country that has brought them together and pulled them apart.
He hopes that he won’t die of love before he has a chance to love her.
Word Count: 532
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Roy/Riza
Summary: The empty streets do nothing to soothe the aching in Roy's heart.
A/N: Check out my fic listing here for more fic!
The walk to Hawkeye’s apartment is paved with familiar streets; at night, empty shops and emptier alleyways that echo Roy’s footsteps with achingly loud thump thump thumps. He walks them with her, sometimes, maybe Thursday when the workload gets heavy. He glances at her waist, her fingertips, lips, elbows and knees that bend gracefully as she strides forward. He makes small talk, asks about her dog, that sort of thing; questions and nonsense that help him ignore the way the streetlights illuminate the look on her face and the feeling in his chest. Hawkeye pretends like she doesn’t know what he’s doing. She always does, but not completely, because sometimes Roy catches her looking at him in the office when it’s quiet and they can hear the atoms that jump between their skin.
He spends an inordinate amount of time hoping that one day those atoms will collide and create a reaction: a galaxy built out of the hours of wanting and feeling, the hours of missed opportunities, a galaxy only for them.
More often than not he walks these streets alone; him, his fear, and the aching that refuses to go away every time he tries to speak her name. One of these days he hopes that the syllables that leave his mouth won’t form any honoraries or formalities, but instead just Riza, just her name as it was spoken to him long, long ago on the front porch of her father’s house. When they first met she had been a tiny thing - all skin and bones and not much different than she is now, except for the things that make it impossible for him to speak her name. Except for everything. Roy wonders if everything is too much, if the differences outweigh the years piled between them, the glue that clings to her back. They’re different people now and different spells danger. They have to tiptoe around headquarters and hope that lazy filing can cover for their recent hobby of treason - a hobby that sometimes involves too many models and not enough glue. It’s tricky business. They don’t have time to walk backwards anymore and relive memories never forgotten (like Sunday afternoon walks to the market or the way her lips tingled against his skin in the summer night air). Everything now is based on the future; the steps they need to take, the precautions, plans for the aftermath and after the aftermath. They can only ever focus on their goal.
(Roy can only ever focus on Hawkeye.)
They walk to her apartment together sometimes, but mostly Roy walks alone. He walks everywhere alone nowadays; alone with his thoughts, alone with his shadow. His shadow takes a decidedly female shape, three steps back; a ghost from his past that will never reconcile because she is there and he is here, loving her entirely too much and yet not enough, because he is loving her and loving the promise of a future that beckons at every corner. He is loving this stupid, naive country that has brought them together and pulled them apart.
He hopes that he won’t die of love before he has a chance to love her.