#royaiweek2018

He hums a lullaby under his breath, rocking the baby in his arms gently to lull her back to sleep. The lines on her little face smooth out instantly and then she yawns; something like a small smile appears on her face before she calms down again.

He caresses her cheek with his thumb – god, she’s just so tiny – and starts to wonder, for the millionth time, what does this wonderful, cruel world have in store for her. This fair-haired, dark-eyed little baby born out of a bond that stretches decades, out of love and loyalty and bloodsheds. She is held by the hands that killed, comforted by the smell of gunpowder in her mother’s hair, tickled by fingers who snapped and obliterated everything in her father’s wake. And how does she fit into all of this, how will she grow up with this kind of heritage?

How can he protect her from the mistakes that he’s made? How can he keep her frozen in time, innocent and unspoiled and golden? There will be a time, and it’s coming soon when it will take more than a few notes of a lullaby to soothe her. All he wants is for her to stay safe and sound and how he’s supposed to do that?

“ You’re doing this again.”

A soft, sleepy voice derails his train of thoughts; without looking,  he can feel her shifting beside him and sitting up, leaning her head on his shoulder. So early in the morning, she’s younger; stripped out of her old uniform and all the years of discipline and yearning and cruelty. With her blond hair unbound and eyes half-open she could as well be no older than this pretty village girl he has left standing alone on the train station in a different lifetime.

“What exactly am I doing?” he asks her with a hint of amusement in his voice, because, well, he already knows the answer.

“ Overthinking everything”

“ I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She shakes her head, clicking her tongue in annoyance and taking Eli from his arms; she lifts her up to kiss the baby’s forehead.

“ She’s not hungry yet, you should sleep.” He grumbles, looping an arm around Riza’s waist to press them both closer to him. She props her chin up on his collarbone and looks up at him; cognac-eyes, messy-haired, with pillow wrinkles on her cheek, milk stains on her shirt and holding their baby… she takes his breath away.

“ Well, you’re not sleeping either, so-“ she lets the unspoken question of “why aren’t you” hanging in the air. She’s not going to ask it because they both know the answer. It’s embarrassing and it’s true; he can’t stop thinking that as soon as he’ll fall asleep, it will all disappear.

The nursery next to their bedroom, the bedroom itself, Riza from his side and Elizabeth from his arms. And he’ll wake up in his old apartment again, with the stale taste on whiskey in his mouth and this bitter, bitter ache in his chest, as if he was missing something vital and didn’t know what.

And he knows that and she knows that, and he knows that she’s afraid of that too; that this life they have now is just some cruel joke of a universe, a coma dream, a mist and a mirage. That it’s not real and it will not last.

He raises her left hand to his mouth, kissing the cold, metal band of her wedding ring and lies.

“ I don’t know, I’m just not sleepy. “

Riza nods her head knowingly, sending him a sad smile before looking down at their daughter again.  She caresses the pink bud of the baby’s lips with the tip of her finger, watching as Eli scrunches her button nose in displeasure.

“ I count on her fingers” she whispers, her voice barely loud enough for him to hear them, even in the quietness of the morning. “ When she’s eating. I count on her fingers just to know she is real.”

His arm tightens around her waist involuntary. There is a heavy burden they both have to carry; how can you cope with having a happy ending after spending your whole life believing that you don’t deserve one?

“ And you know, she is. She is real. It is real. Although it’s hard to believe it sometimes.” She tugs at his heartstrings with each and every syllable. He kisses the crown of her hair, wordlessly assuring her that yes, I know that and she sighs deeply, snuggling closer to him and leaning her head on his chest.

It’s getting lighter outside; early sun rays are spilling into the room, basking everything in this ethereal pinkish glow. The white curtains are billowing on the summer breeze, which carries the smell of fresh cut grass and peonies growing in the pot on their balcony. The birds are chirping cheerfully, getting louder and louder with every passing minute. He can hear the sound of Hayate switching position in his wicker basket downstairs; a  few years ago Riza would probably already be on the morning walk with him, but now the dog has finally gotten used to the new routine and stopped waking them up with pitiful wining at the crack of dawn.

Soft snore echoes in the room and he realizes that Riza has fallen back asleep on his chest, with Eli tucked in the crook of her elbow and her small head cushioned on Riza’s breast. As they lay like that together, mother and daughter, with their golden hair and fair skin and faint freckles scattered on the bridges of their noses, they are the epitome of serenity older than time.

He could stare at them forever, stay like that forever with them in his arms and never get bored, never have enough of it.

The clock chimes half past five and he realizes he could actually let his girls sleep, get out of bed and start a day now. Make himself a cup of coffee, eat a toast, walk Hayate. There is a thick stack of papers on his desk, all very urgent and he has a few important meeting in the afternoon that he has to prepare for.

He could start a day now. But he won’t.

Instead, he leans his head down, burying his nose in Riza’s hair ( all he can smell is her mint shampoo and baby powder, nothing, nothing else) and breaths out. He gently nudges Eli’s palm with his index finger and watches, transfixed, as her tiny fingers wrap around his much larger one.

He pins her to the wall of her living room and here’s the best part – she lets him do this, smiling against his lips and skillfully sneaking her hands underneath his shirt to spread them between his shoulder blades. He shivers when she gently traces the line of his spine with the very tips of his fingers and then opens her lips wider so that he can slip his tongue inside her mouth.She’s so playful today; he can’t wrap his mind around it. Carefree in the way she bits on his lower lip and humms in appreciation when he pushes his leg in between her tights.

 And not that it's something he's not happy about- because saying that he's unhappy right now would be an understatement of a century- but he just doesn’t know why. It normally takes more time to coax her into this mood; she would double check the curtains in the room, go through their daily schedule to make sure that he was not seen entering her apartment and lock Hayate in bathroom with a bowl of water and few dog treats before he could even steal her a kiss or two.

And he doesn’t complain about it, wouldn’t even dare to complain because he knows why he’s so careful, so restrained. Why she keeps herself in check at all times, on high alert. His very existence depends on this instinct of hers.

But well, it’s fun to just- have fun. To just kiss her, just hold her without going through the whole security protocol beforehand. Just feel her against him, so warm and so eager, with her bright eyes and hair unbound. It’s almost as if they were kids again, chasing each other through the forest near her house, playing hide-and-seek in raspberry bushes and ending up scratched all over and joyful. Her hair was shorter then and he was scrawnier and they were both idealistic and innocent, but she still enchants him with everything she is and does, even after all those years.

There are her fingers in his hair, tugging on strands more forcefully than usual and she wines impatiently as he takes too much time with the buttons of her blouse. And as much as he likes this penned up frustration of hers that shows, he doesn’t want her to be tense, so he smirks and presses a wet kiss just underneath her jaw and – as if he pressed some secret button- she just sags in his arms, her legs giving up beneath her, only his hips and hands keeping her standing.

He laughs. She grows.

“God, fuck you, Roy.”

She only ever uses his name like that, when they are both stripped out of their clothes and their ranks and positions, and it is a really strange experience to be turned on by the sound of one’s own name, but well, they are a strange pair. And when she calls him Roy like this, with lips swollen and eyes half-lidded, with this husky, breathy voice of her- it makes his blood boil.

“ You’re welcome.” He shots back, pushing his hips against hers and making her gasp louder and louder and he continues to kiss his way down the column of her neck. More teeth, more tongue; her nails clawing against the skin of his back, her legs trembling, the smell of her intoxicating

.He gets away with teasing for a while, but when he sucks on her pulse point she just straight-up moans and this is too much for both of them; quicker than his brain can register things her has her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms wrapped around his neck and he holds her up as she’s kissing him with reckless abandon, spit on their chins and his five-o-clock shadow irritating her cheeks.

Damn this woman, damn her.

Suddenly she’s all around him, she’s all he sees and all he feels; his senses can barely keep up with her and he has lost this game before it even started, because all he can really do I hold her up as she presses herself to him as closely as possible, taking his shirt off him and leaning her head down to kiss his exposes collarbones.

He stumbles on his own feet as he rushes to her bedroom, blind and deaf and so achingly hard it’s almost embarrassing.  Then they bump into the doorframe and he mutters so-orry under his breath, grunting when she slowly rolls her hips against his in response, apparently to punish him, because she is the menace of his life.

He lays her down on the bed, kneeling in-between her spread legs and just looking at her for a moment. Half of their coworkers would not even recognize the woman lying in front of him as orderly Riza Hawkeye - not in this heavily panting, wild beauty with a mess of blonde tresses around her head, flushed cheeks, and red, wet lips.

They would never, in million years connected put-together Lieutenant Hawkeye with this woman. Her breasts are spilling out of her modest white bra and she deliberately licks her lower lip and reaches for his hand and places it in-between her legs to let him know how wet she is, her body twitching and spasming desperately when he covers it with his.

They would never recognize her because they have never seen her like that, nobody has ever seen her like that but him and this sight of this woman is his and his alone and this thought is roaring in his head, in his veins, makes him boil in his own skin.

Mine, he kisses the top of her breasts, nudging the cups of her bra down to suck on her nipples, his hand slipping underneath the band of her undergarments. Mine, mine, mine.

Yours, she throws her head back, breathing heavily and leaving crescent-moon marks with her nails on his biceps, spreading her legs wider. Yours, yours, yours.

Mine, she pushes up her hips and throws him off-balance so that he lands flat on his back, her hovering above him and undoing the claps of her bra, pressing kisses down his chest and letting him tangle his fingers in her hair. Mine.

Yours, he pulls his pants down, closes his eyes for a moment and seeing the stars burning on the underside of his eyelids as she sinks down on him, her body so warm and so familiar to him, even more than his own. Yours.

They know each other so well, get each other so perfectly, fit together just right.

And then there is the dance they’ve been dancing for so long that the steps are already familiar, but they never fail to make his breath catch; he lays his hands down, palms up and open and she takes them, her grip strong and sure. He opens his eyes to see her staring down at him, eyes hazy but shining, her smile blinding, her expression infinitely soft.

They wouldn’t recognize you darling, because they don’t know you; but I do, I know you, I’ve got you.

He raises one of his hands still laced with hers and uses his knuckles to brush loose strands of her hair away from her face. Her fringe is plastered to her forehead with sweat; there is a hickey already beginning to redden on her neck.“ I love you” he whispers, but he wants to scream. With him already half-buried in her, her tights shaking and naked, she looks like the ruler of the stars, the queen of this whole damn world.

( I’m gonna give it to you, I’m gonna get there; I’ll wrap this world in ribbon and set it down at your feet, he promised her once wordlessly, after they first slept together; she was asleep then, laying on her front, with her burns still fresh, trusting him with everything in her, even after he betrayed her so terribly. Best of women, a diamond amongst pebbles. I’ll make it right for all, but especially for you).

“I love you too.” She says and starts to move.

Even after he was eighteen and he saw his Master’s daughter after summer holiday, no longer a girl but not yet a woman, wearing this worn-out blue dress a bit too small for her and so achingly pretty, smiling at the sight of him and his heart did a somersault in his chest, the thought of soulmates did not even cross his mind.

Even after he saw with his own two eyes how his older sister Lilian gasped when her new husband said I do at the altar and how she burst into tears, hiding her pretty face and her wet cheeks in her hands; he just shook his head and blushed, a bit overwhelmed with the whole scene.

Even after all of the Maes’ excited babble about how Gracia bumped into him on the street and she breathlessly apologized:“ I am so sorry, I hope you’re fine?” and he felt the whole world shift underneath his feet and he was all like it’s her, I cannot believe it’s her; even after Roy had to listen to hours of starstruck gushing… even then Roy didn’t quite believe him.

All it took for him to believe was Ishval and blood and gore and ashes and war.

He doesn’t quite believe any of the talks about soulmates, until he is twenty-three and kneeling on the dry dirt on his tent’s floor, Riza Hawkeye stripped to the waist and  turning her back to him with “I can’t do this” in his own, loop scrawl high on her left shoulder blade.

He’s seen this line before when she first showed him her tattoo. But back then he wrote in a much neater font, the words were not that important compared to the alchemical circle covering them and besides, this phrase didn’t really seem like something he could ever say to her. Not to the girl he wanted to impress so badly he almost crawled out of his own skin in desperate attempts to do so.

And yet.

Here they are.

He lowers his hands down on the ground; his palms burning,  his head spinning. He fixes his gaze on the loose pebbles laying near his knees and he says:

“ Riza, I can’t do this.”

She shivers so violently that he snaps his head back.

“No, no, no.” she half-cries, half-whispers, wrapping her arms around her frame. “Oh, Roy.”

Part of her back is already raw and burned, but the letters catch the light as if they were written with a golden ink on her skin. He takes a breath and forgets to let it out, and before he can do anything, say anything, her voice, sharp and clear and cold cuts the air.

“Please, don’t stop.”

And it is just as Maes said, just as Aunt Chris said, as all of them said and he could never wrap his mind around; he just knows, deep, deep, in the deepest part of him, in the very core of who he is.

He wants to laugh, he wants to cry because of course, it’s her, it has to be her, how can it be anybody else but her? Riza Hawkeye’s life is tied to his, woven together to form a tight cord that cannot be separated anymore. For some time he thought they were parallel lines, running along to one another but at that moment he realizes they had been just one line from the very beginning.

Where you go, I follow.

He leans his forehead on the small of her back, feeling her body going tense underneath his touch. He wraps his arms around her waist and sobs openly, unashamed.

All this time his soulmark made him an object of jokes and dirty-talk and “Well Roy, you will be really good at those things if you know what I mean.”. He took pride in those words. He would never, in a million years envision those circumstances.

Because how could he imagine his soulmate begging him to don’t stop hurting her?

What kind of person could even think of something like this?

She laces her fingers with his and squeezes his hand so strong, that it goes numb.

His mother will be there, waiting for his train; he is sure of that. She’s mad at him, but not so mad not to welcome him back. And Mimi will be there too, by mother’s side. He’s sure his little sister must’ve changed through all those years but it’s hard to imagine that she’s not a girl anymore. That she no longer wears two braids, no longer sneaks out to wander through the woods and would not follow him wherever he goes with the puppy devotion.

Both his mother and Mimi will wear black and there will be an empty space right where his father should be standing.

And of course, the whole village will be there, whether waiting for their loved ones to come home or watching other’s loved ones coming home with bittersweet envy.  Mrs. Jones from the bakery and miss Poppy from the school and all of the women from the church’s choir and Mister Haviland who lost his leg in the first Great War and escaped enlisting into part two of it.

And there will be Riza. She will come. She will come with her head held high, against gossips of the town, against his mother’s poisonous glances and her father curses. She will come and wait for him, with her hands bare and no shame whatsoever.

God, he missed her. He missed her so bad that this yearning has taken a form of physical pain somewhere in his chest. No bullet could ever hurt as much as being away from Riza for so long.

He has even a proof of that.

Lucky charms are abundant in an army during the war; whether it’s a photograph of their loved ones ( or photographies, as plural, in case of Maes) or some object, like a pack of disgusting, cheap cigarettes favored by Havoc or a worn-out pocket size bible of Falman’s. Even men that could never be called superstitious held something special to them close at all times.  No matter how reasonable and grounded you are, the moment you are up in the air and see Messerschmitts on the horizon, every rational thought flies out of the window. You may know that those special items don’t really do anything, but it doesn’t hurt to have them, right?

Roy was not an exception from this rule and was not particularly ashamed of that, although he wasn’t sure this object could be called a lucky charm in a strict definition of this term. Sometimes he thought of it as of a  lifeline, connecting him to a person he used to be before he left to join this horrible, pointless war; as of some kind of a link that he could hold on to when he felt he was about to slip into insanity any moment.                                                                                                          

  It was a small, wooden chess piece, white paint peeling off it, hole drilled through its middle so that he can wear it on a chain around his neck.

A queen, that he snatched from the table one August day and hid in his pocket, without understanding why he did so.  

Every time he raised his hand up and found its familiar shape underneath his shirt it was almost as if he was back home again, sitting on the wooden porch of Hawk’s Nest, Riza in front of him;  biting on her lower lip and thinking about her next move, eyes fixed on the board and unaware that he cannot, for dear life, stop staring at her.

He had some more mementos in the base during the war; a thick stack of letters from his parents and a small bouquet of dried primroses from his sister; Riza’s yellow ribbon that she wore on her wide-brimmed hat when she went to send him off on the train station; some photographies; his journal. But for some reason, the chess piece was the thing that he felt most connected to.

He loves his mother, loves his sister and loved his father dearly. They are his family and he owes them everything. No matter how at odds he is with his mom, he knows she’ll be waiting for him at the station and he will wrap her up in a hug and feel like a little boy again.

But as the train whistles sharply and starts to slow down, making its way towards the familiar stop at snail’s pace- as he thinks of home, all he can think about are warm, brown eyes and the lovely face of the girl that agreed to marry him, before he set the world on fire. He doesn’t deserve her hand, now more than ever, but damn. If he’s alive when so many others are dead, he’s gonna use the rest of his life trying to become better for her.

With a small smile on his lips and holding the white queen in his hand, he smacks Maes’ thigh to wake him up and stands up to reach for his suitcase.

RIZA

By the time she reaches the train station, Riza’s dress is drenched with sweat, her fringe is plastered to her forehead and she’s so nervous that she’s afraid her heart will just jump out of her chest and fall in front of Roy’s feet.

It’s a beautiful June day; the sun is shining brightly on the clear sky, sheep look like clouds of white, their fur slowly growing back after April shearing. But Madeline’s calf had hurt his leg sometime during the night and then she had had to manage the small crisis in chicken coop - and ended up just barely managing to finish all of her duties on time this morning. She had run through almost whole 6 miles long way from Hawk’s Nest to the station and cursed the sun the whole time.

But it’s still so good to be here, to get her hands dirty, to numb the voices in her head with the grueling physical work.  After she came back from London in early April, she found the farm in such bad that she has spent a few following weeks just working and sleeping, working and sleeping. A blissful escape from thinking, if anyone asked her. Maybe her muscles were burning and angry blisters were forming on her hands, but at least she did not have to sit in the office the whole day and type and type and type, the letters forming names and surnames, each one meaning someone was not coming home anymore.

At least she didn’t fall asleep with the images of burning planes spiraling down and crashing into the sea. At least she didn’t wake up each day with the excruciating pain that she will hear “Roy  Mustang” through the radio.

Thank God for small blessings.

She was not in London anymore. She was home, standing in front of the train station, with her hair messy and the hole in her stocking, waiting for Roy’s train to arrive.

For the millionth time she recalls the last time she saw him; at the party, his parents held for when he went on his first and last leave, just after completing the training and before starting serve. They had spent the first hour or so politely conversing about his military life and her transcribing course, circling each other cautiously and acting as strangers.

He was wearing his uniform and she was wearing this blue dress with buttons that she doesn’t have anymore because it became too big when she has lost weight. She thinks she has given it this one pregnant friend of Rebecca, but she’s not sure.

They were chatting about everything and nothing as if there was nothing between them as if he has never kissed her, as if she has never kissed him back – and then he offered her his hand and pulled her towards his childhood bedroom.

She closes her eyes and yes, she still remembers it all so clearly; the trumpets in the song playing downstairs, his slicked-backed hair and dark eyes, so honest and more serious than she has ever seen him before. How he dropped on one knee and leaned his forehead on the knuckles of her left hand, the rich timbre of his voice, quietly asking her to please, allow him the joy of marrying her.

And her soft, breathy “yes”.

How could she even do anything else but agree?  She could never deny Roy anything he would ask for.

She smooths out the wrinkles on her skirt, takes a deep breath and pushes the glass doors; the train station is crowded, full of those lucky ones who get to see their sons and fiancés and brothers come home. She, with her sweaty palms and serious face, sticks out as a sore thumb.

She spots Mrs. Mustang in the crowd with no problem; clad all in black, with face obscured by the widow’s veil she puts a little distance between her and everyone else, back straight and hands laced. She is the epitome of grace, even with this bittersweet air of half-sadness, half-joy surrounding her. Riza doesn’t dare to step closer; the last time they talked she received a firm slap on the cheek and a clear signal that she would never be welcomed into this family, no matter how insistent Roy was on marrying her.

Riza sacrifices a minute or two to go through her old list of reasons why Lilian Mustang hates her; she is poor, her father is mad, her mother is dead, her farm is ruined. She is nothing but debt and trouble. She has – or at least had, now, that the war is over-  a job. She hunts. She wears pants sometimes. She’s not a virgin.

And the one at the root of it all; she stole her darling son from her. She’s been stealing him, piece by piece, for years, long before they were found in those raspberry bushes, drunk in each other.

But Riza can do nothing about it and she has already spent too much time dwelling on that, so she shakes it off, trying instead to focus on Mimi.  Roy’s younger sister grew up so much while Riza stayed in London, that she barely looks like the same person; she’s so tall now, with the  same black hair as all of the Mustang’s tied in a ponytail and wearing modest gray dress that belongs to a woman, not a girl she used to be not so long ago. Gone are the plump knees and chubby cheek -  Mimi has cheekbones now, sharp, sculptured, giving her face a mature look of a movie star. She’s standing next to her mother, scanning the crowd with her blue eyes and when she spots Riza, her mouth curves into a small smile and she discretely waves her with the tips of her gloved fingers.

Riza returns the gesture; how she would love to talk with Mimi.  Give her a hug, offer condolences, run barefoot through Mustang’s peach orchard and make flower crowns out of daisies again.

But not today. Maybe never; maybe too much time has passed, maybe there are too different now to act like those happy-go-lucky little girls again.

Then, there is a whistle, a whine, a hollow sound of metal rolling on another metal. Somebody shouts, somebody starts to cry; people push towards the tracks, pushing one another out of their way,

And Riza stays frozen, her back glued to the wall of the station’s building, all at one drowning in the whole ocean of emotions, a wild current of them pulling her under.

Suddenly, she’s scared, she’s frightened, she’s terrified; her legs tremble and she clasps her hands together so tightly that her knuckles turn; somewhere at the back of her mind, her brain registers the taste of metal on her tongue as she bits hard on her lower lip.

Roy, Roy, Roy her blood hums his name in her ears.

What if he doesn’t want her anymore?

Don’t be ridiculous she scolds herself. She’s not really afraid of that; she knows her boy. She knows his heart as well as her own. Roy could never look at her like during this party if he didn’t want her. And although a lot can change during six long years, although they are different people now, each and every letter that he send her spoke of his loyalty and love and devotion – shouted about it, even –so clearly, that he could never fake it, could never lie to her like that.

He still wants her, still loves her. So why is she trembling? What is that that she’s so scared of?

The train slowly stops but Riza cannot hear anything but the names shouted by people.

“ Marcel” and “Thomas” and “Maes” and “Andrew” and-

“Roy!”

Mimi is standing on the bench, balancing on one leg and waving her handkerchief excitedly.

“Roy, Roy!” she shouts out, despite her mother tugging on her skirt, apparently demanding of her to stop. “Roy!”

Riza cannot see her face, but she’s sure Mimi’s crying; she sounds a bit teary and she was always likely to tear up while reading a romance novel or listening to a sad song.

There is a sea of people separating her from the train, so she’s not actually able to see how soldiers step out, but she spots this moment; the screams increase in volume and more people starts to cry and then Mimi jumps down, right into somebody’s arms-

And Riza is standing still, her feet rooted in the ground, her hands clenched into fists, her vision narrowed down to the dark head next to Mimi’s. He’s taller and broader than she remembers him; all of the other details are obscured by the crowd.

Some girl pushes through people next to her, running towards a man in glasses who drops down his backpack to catch her. Some woman has her arms around the tall guy in mid-twenties; she openly sobs into his chest and he looks down at her fondly. Some other couple is kissing. Some man gathers three kids from the ground all at once and spins with them around, their cheerful shrieks filling the air.

All this joy. All this happiness.

“Riza!”

Her heart stops.

“Riza!”

Her breath catches.

“Riza!”

He’s taller. And broader. Hair still unruly, eyes still dark and sparkling, although they were not bags underneath them before the war. Shirt stretching out on the muscles that didn’t use to be there.

Flushed cheeks that she remembers, the aura of self-confidence that’s new. A mixed of the Roy she knew and the Roy she will get to know.

She covers her mouth with her hands and closes her eyes. Tears spill down her face, cool against the heated skin.

“Roy.” She can barely recognize her voice when she whispers. “Roy.”

The war, the bombs, the planes, the bombing alarms, London and the lists of fallen-

All of the shouts in her head disappear when he pulls her into his arms, when he wraps himself around her, when he says her name like that – like a prayer, like a promise.

Before:

"You always refuse to sacrifice the queen.” She notices with a tint of humor in her normally-serious voice, playing with the loose strand of her hair and staring at her feet, instead of looking at him.

And he’s so stupid, stupid in the way grin splits his face, stupid in the way he can’t help but want with all of him to run his fingers through her hair.

“ Well, I’ve told you. Queen is important. She can do almost anything. If used in right way, she can decide on the outcome of the game.”

Are they still talking about chess?

Probably not.

The sun sets behind the hills and they watch it together, sitting on the steps in front of her house. It’s a summer evening, warm and smelling of sweet peaches and warm soil. Crickets are singing, a light breeze is making the wheat sway and swish.

He takes her hand in his, laces his finger with hers and she basks in this feeling; how he doesn’t shy away from her callouses and roughened skin, how warm and big his hand is. There is a sense of security in his touch. There is something stable, something grounded; you could build on a foundation like that.

She raises her head up to look at him and finds him already looking at her. He’s smiling softly, this smile making his eyes crinkle and shine; she can feel her cheeks turn pink. It is just a regular summer evening, one of so many they shared, but still, there’s something different in it, there’s some added weight hanging in the air.  It feels important. It feels like something they will recall twenty years from now.

And still, it’s just natural as breathing when he leans towards her and gently raises her chin up.

The sun is setting. The crickets are singing. The wheat is swishing. The old wood is creaking underneath their weight as they move.