#incaendiium

the door opens, and maes looks up to see ROY.  something snaps in him seeing his best friend in the world.  he inhales sharply, eyes brimming with tears.  “r -- roy, roy, i -- “  and then he feels his chest tighten.

“i c-- can’t --  i -- ”  the panic seizes him, and he can’t breathe.  every time he inhales, he feels like he can’t catch his breath.  “roy,  roy -- ” he’s begging.  for what?  he doesn’t know.  maes can’t breathe, he can’t, he can’t --- 

Gold eyes narrow down at the older man as he sets there - before him injured with the fucking attitude to fight with him. With the fucking gumption to give him back talk when he’s offering a helping hand. He honestly doesn’t know if he should be offended or appalled. Maybe surprised - he thinks he should be surprised but this is Roy Mustang so he’s not.  

“Yeah looks that way. That’s why yer settin’ there in fuckin’ bandages after gittin’ yer ass kicked. Sure looks like you got it handled ta me.”  The younger snaps back with biting sarcasm. 

“Why is that ev’ry time I try ta help ya, you gotta have some shit ta say? Hawkeye ain’t here ta do it, Yer Majesty so how ‘bouts you shut the fuck up n’ sit still while I change yer fuckin’ bandages. When I’m done, I’ll worry ‘bout food. Until then, yer in my hands.” 

He doesn’t have it in him today to deal with his Commanding Officer’s bullshit. He’s trying to be nice why does he always have to be such an asshole? Is it in his blood? He is incapable of being nice? Is he defective?  Does that process just not exist in his brain?  

“Gee thanks Colonel. Yer lookin’ great too.” He sounds with sarcasm dripping from his tone. Shoulders dropped, dark rings on pale skin rest beneath golden eyes. Dull moons of his vision, they don’t quite have the same shine that they usually do. A dark line of red spreads over the boy’s features through his cheeks and over his nose. 

A blush? No. A fever?  Far more likely.  

When was the last time he slept? Last night? Maybe... not for very long though. He’s been chasing a lead and as such he’s been trying to follow it as quickly as he could. He’s taken a couple impromptu naps here and there - more like he just finally collapsed on top of his research. 

“Sleepin’? Yeah.  A’course I have.”  He lies. He’s a terrible liar but he does it anyway. He’s wobbling where he stands, he just came in to use the research room so he had some where quiet to work with a steady supply of coffee.  Sleeping? Why wouldn’t he be?  He’s not stupid....he sleeps when he needs to, he’s just really got get this work done. He’ll take a nap when he’s done with it. 

Send me   ‘ 🌪 ‘   to catch my muse in the middle of a violent breakdown. Throwing things, breaking things, yelling… @incaendiium

If there was something that Riza Hawkeye rarely did, it was snap. She probably had as a child, to some degree, but by the time she was old enough to really form memories, she had long learned the lesson of how to be quiet and stay quiet and to control herself. Her teenaged years and adult life had also been characterized by a need to keep herself controlled. Usually when she did have an outburst, there was a reason, and it was small, such as yelling at the colonel for revealing himself on a mission, or crying while holding Hayate when emotions finally just overflowed.

But rarely, if ever, was Riza Hawkeye out of control.

That was not the case now. Riza had snapped, she had lost control, and years of pent up emotions were pouring out, pouring past the logic that told her how much she was going to regret what she was doing, the things that were getting accidently destroyed, the attention she was bringing to herself. All she could see at the moment were the emotions that were swirling in her, crowding out all rational thought.

Despair, rage, hopelessness, longing, and other emotions she couldn’t even begin to identify swirled in her. She seized upon yet another alchemy text--one she had brought back from her childhood home for the Elric brothers, and threw it with a yell, it knocking down a few picture frames that were sitting on a cabinet.

“I hate alchemy!” she yelled out. “I hate! It’s a cursed science!” 

She picked up another book and threw it, not able to clearly see where she was throwing with the tears she was crying. It flew across the room and landed, hard, against the door frame where someone was just opening her door.

“I hate it!” she screamed again, and picked up another text to throw, notes from it joining the notes on the floor--notes in her father’s handwriting. She threw it without aim, knocking more things off the wall with crashes, and it was only then that she noticed the figure in the doorway. Roy.

She seized upon something else--a glass this time--and threw it out the door.

“I hate alchemy! It destroys people! It’ll destroy you too! It does nothing but take and destroy everything it touches!”