[fic] FMA: L Is For... [Hawkeye, RoyAi?]
Why am I ficcing so much? It makes me stay up late when I don't want to. ;_; This is the randomest idea ever and I had a long list of words that began with "L" that I thankfully did not use. (It fondly reminded me of the "R" obsession I had when I was writing the R15.) I think I like this fic though, but watch everyone hate it because I like it. =\
On another note, I was very, very tempted to throw HyuAi into this too. Alas, I chickened out.
Unedited. Naturally.
L Is For...
… lover.
“Lover” was a misnomer or so Hawkeye decided one night. She could count all her lovers on one hand-although maybe even that was more than most people would accredit her-but she couldn’t say she had loved them all. Her first time had been in high school in his room that was small and crowded with all the evidence of his young life. He had been two years older than her. When he held her hand, she could feel the trembling in his hot fingers and the sweat of his nervousness. It had taken him three tries just to ask her out, this quiet boy whom no one really noticed, but whose laugh boomed out of his filling frame. When they talked, sometimes he stumbled over his words and couldn’t quite meet her eye, but then he would smile and it was like watching a transformation. She lived for those moments when she could see him change like this: when he let go of the world and became something only of himself.
The quiet boy with the big laugh and the gentle smile. They must have made an odd pair, but they’d dated until he graduated. The night before he left to join the army, they’d passed the night in his room. They had only been children she knew now, but then they had been conquering the world. In her senior year, he came home in a coffin.
She had cried at his funeral; she had had no reason to stop the tears and wouldn’t have one until years later, but by then she had been steadily building the walls around her and it had only been a matter of making the decision rather than effort. Even today, though, she thought she might have loved him-with all her adolescent passion and naivety.
College opened up a whole new world. She’d met and flirted and dated lightly in all innocence, reveling in her newfound freedom, but it was the young man who drunkenly hit on her that would eventually win her heart. It was his sincere apology afterwards, when he was sober, that made her forgive him. It was their long talks in the night, under the stars, huddled together on some raggedy couch, leaning on the rail of some porch to escape a party that made her want him.
He was not the gentlest lover or the most skilled, but she didn’t care then. She just wanted him. But in the end, they’d been closer as friends than they could ever have been pressed skin to bare skin. They sensed this somehow. They never truly broke up; her last memory of him was the kiss she gave him on the cheek on the day of their graduation. He had smiled at her and said, “Good bye.” It had only been a little sad.
In Ishvar, though, it wasn’t about smiles or flirting or innocence. It was about the cold, the dying, and the mounting desperation. It was about escape. She remembered he hadn’t shaved in days and his cheek, when it pressed against hers, had been abrasive, but that night she’d relished the uncomfortable sensation. She was alive, alive, alive and she could be anywhere, not there, but anywhere and he was warm and when he said her name, it sounded like a prayer. She hadn’t loved him by any stretch of imagination, but he hadn’t loved her either. It wasn’t even about the sex. They’d been looking for something else in each other: a lifeline back to reality, an anchor for sanity.
She’d only done it once and she never wanted to have to do it again. Maybe that was why she clung so fiercely once she found her place. Maybe that was why when she moved on to her last lover she felt the need to give everything or nothing at all.
This last lover she saw almost on a daily basis. He was arrogant and lazy and, above all, ambitious. He also had a smirk she sometimes wanted to wipe off his face and a nasty habit of taking other girls on dates. But he was also observant, careful, reasonable, yet somehow almost fragile. Something to protect. Sometimes he even smiled at her, unguardedly, wholeheartedly. Sometimes she even smiled back.
They were lovers in the most fundamental definition of the word.
*
… lust.
However, she’d be lying if she said she didn’t want him, didn’t wonder how he would feel under her hands-harder or softer than her former lovers?-how’d his lips would feel against hers-did he kiss on the first date? would they bother with a date?-if he would take her slow or fast-his ambition made him hungry, she knew, but his self-control made him devastatingly merciless in his patience-if he’d call her “First Lieutenant” or “Hawkeye” or “Riza.”
She’d be lying if she said she didn’t fantasize about the sex.
*
… logic.
Of course, though, if happiness were as simple as just having sex, she’d have slept with him a long time ago. But nothing was ever simple, not in their lives, not with his dreams. She’d realized that the moment she’d decided to follow him. She’d known that since the moment she couldn’t say to him, “I love you.” But she would wait. She could wait.
She’d already been waiting all this time.
*
… lies.
Or so she told herself. Sometimes she wondered if she could stand another day beneath his gaze, filled with words and thoughts she wasn’t sure were real or imagined. Sometimes he seemed like an abstract painting she once studied, filled with shapes she thought were familiar but kept hinting at a greater image that she could never quite see.
Were they just figures in a music box, seemingly dancing towards each other but forever twirling away on some invisible path that drove them apart? She used to have a music box like that and on rainy days she would lie on her bed watching the spinning figures. She used to wonder how they could wear their vibrant smiles despite the distance that separated them.
*
… loyalty.
But she couldn’t leave him, even on the days she was filled with doubts and questions. She had told him that she would follow him and she would, not because she had said she would but because she wanted to. Because she wanted to be near him, to watch him, to protect him, to share what time she could with him in whatever context, to live life with him in it.
It was a devotion born out of selfish reasons, but surely he could forgive her that. If he loved her.
*
… love.
When she realized she could live without him acknowledging her love for him, without him loving her, without even so much as a kiss, but that she couldn’t live in a world without him in it, she knew she loved him and for now it was enough.
She would wait for the day when they could become lovers in every conceivable meaning and those that couldn't be described at all.
On another note, I was very, very tempted to throw HyuAi into this too. Alas, I chickened out.
Unedited. Naturally.
L Is For...
… lover.
“Lover” was a misnomer or so Hawkeye decided one night. She could count all her lovers on one hand-although maybe even that was more than most people would accredit her-but she couldn’t say she had loved them all. Her first time had been in high school in his room that was small and crowded with all the evidence of his young life. He had been two years older than her. When he held her hand, she could feel the trembling in his hot fingers and the sweat of his nervousness. It had taken him three tries just to ask her out, this quiet boy whom no one really noticed, but whose laugh boomed out of his filling frame. When they talked, sometimes he stumbled over his words and couldn’t quite meet her eye, but then he would smile and it was like watching a transformation. She lived for those moments when she could see him change like this: when he let go of the world and became something only of himself.
The quiet boy with the big laugh and the gentle smile. They must have made an odd pair, but they’d dated until he graduated. The night before he left to join the army, they’d passed the night in his room. They had only been children she knew now, but then they had been conquering the world. In her senior year, he came home in a coffin.
She had cried at his funeral; she had had no reason to stop the tears and wouldn’t have one until years later, but by then she had been steadily building the walls around her and it had only been a matter of making the decision rather than effort. Even today, though, she thought she might have loved him-with all her adolescent passion and naivety.
College opened up a whole new world. She’d met and flirted and dated lightly in all innocence, reveling in her newfound freedom, but it was the young man who drunkenly hit on her that would eventually win her heart. It was his sincere apology afterwards, when he was sober, that made her forgive him. It was their long talks in the night, under the stars, huddled together on some raggedy couch, leaning on the rail of some porch to escape a party that made her want him.
He was not the gentlest lover or the most skilled, but she didn’t care then. She just wanted him. But in the end, they’d been closer as friends than they could ever have been pressed skin to bare skin. They sensed this somehow. They never truly broke up; her last memory of him was the kiss she gave him on the cheek on the day of their graduation. He had smiled at her and said, “Good bye.” It had only been a little sad.
In Ishvar, though, it wasn’t about smiles or flirting or innocence. It was about the cold, the dying, and the mounting desperation. It was about escape. She remembered he hadn’t shaved in days and his cheek, when it pressed against hers, had been abrasive, but that night she’d relished the uncomfortable sensation. She was alive, alive, alive and she could be anywhere, not there, but anywhere and he was warm and when he said her name, it sounded like a prayer. She hadn’t loved him by any stretch of imagination, but he hadn’t loved her either. It wasn’t even about the sex. They’d been looking for something else in each other: a lifeline back to reality, an anchor for sanity.
She’d only done it once and she never wanted to have to do it again. Maybe that was why she clung so fiercely once she found her place. Maybe that was why when she moved on to her last lover she felt the need to give everything or nothing at all.
This last lover she saw almost on a daily basis. He was arrogant and lazy and, above all, ambitious. He also had a smirk she sometimes wanted to wipe off his face and a nasty habit of taking other girls on dates. But he was also observant, careful, reasonable, yet somehow almost fragile. Something to protect. Sometimes he even smiled at her, unguardedly, wholeheartedly. Sometimes she even smiled back.
They were lovers in the most fundamental definition of the word.
*
… lust.
However, she’d be lying if she said she didn’t want him, didn’t wonder how he would feel under her hands-harder or softer than her former lovers?-how’d his lips would feel against hers-did he kiss on the first date? would they bother with a date?-if he would take her slow or fast-his ambition made him hungry, she knew, but his self-control made him devastatingly merciless in his patience-if he’d call her “First Lieutenant” or “Hawkeye” or “Riza.”
She’d be lying if she said she didn’t fantasize about the sex.
*
… logic.
Of course, though, if happiness were as simple as just having sex, she’d have slept with him a long time ago. But nothing was ever simple, not in their lives, not with his dreams. She’d realized that the moment she’d decided to follow him. She’d known that since the moment she couldn’t say to him, “I love you.” But she would wait. She could wait.
She’d already been waiting all this time.
*
… lies.
Or so she told herself. Sometimes she wondered if she could stand another day beneath his gaze, filled with words and thoughts she wasn’t sure were real or imagined. Sometimes he seemed like an abstract painting she once studied, filled with shapes she thought were familiar but kept hinting at a greater image that she could never quite see.
Were they just figures in a music box, seemingly dancing towards each other but forever twirling away on some invisible path that drove them apart? She used to have a music box like that and on rainy days she would lie on her bed watching the spinning figures. She used to wonder how they could wear their vibrant smiles despite the distance that separated them.
*
… loyalty.
But she couldn’t leave him, even on the days she was filled with doubts and questions. She had told him that she would follow him and she would, not because she had said she would but because she wanted to. Because she wanted to be near him, to watch him, to protect him, to share what time she could with him in whatever context, to live life with him in it.
It was a devotion born out of selfish reasons, but surely he could forgive her that. If he loved her.
*
… love.
When she realized she could live without him acknowledging her love for him, without him loving her, without even so much as a kiss, but that she couldn’t live in a world without him in it, she knew she loved him and for now it was enough.
She would wait for the day when they could become lovers in every conceivable meaning and those that couldn't be described at all.