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This is the morning of our love,
This is the dawning of our love
The music is so loud that Riza feels as if Depeche Mode concert took place directly in her brain. Her eardrums ache and the room is spinning in front of her eyes; it may be due to music, but she suspects it has more to do with five cups of schnapps that she emptied.
Shitty peach schnapps to be exact, the one that freshmen brewed in their little homemade distillery in the dorms’ basement. It was probably strong enough to serve as a backup rocket fuel.
It feels so silly to be drunk. Why doesn’t she do that more often? All of the edges soften and, as she trips on her high heels and lands on her knees on the staircase, it doesn’t even hurt. She just laughs. She sits down on the goddamn ice-cold concrete stairs in front of dorms, clad only in a tank top and short skirt in the middle of February and she can do nothing but laugh. She’s not even that cold.
Because it’s so funny, you see, she did not want to be here, Rebecca wanted to come because she broke up with Jean again and- and.
“ Uh- Riza?”
What? Oh, fuck
“Oh no, it’s not you!” she exclaims, covering her mouth with both hands, trying to stop herself from giggling. “ It can’t be you!”
He can’t be there? Why is her there, he was supposed to be back home for the weekend, isn’t that what Heymans told her? It’s all so fuzzy, but she would not go to this party if he stayed on campus, this she knows for sure. Uh-no. She would dress up in this tight black sweater and casually spend the afternoon in the library… where he is so often.. or maybe go to this one café that he likes… oh, pull yourself together, Hawkeye!
“Well, I guess it can.” She has her eyes glued to her feet ( where is her shoe anyway? Didn’t she had two of them? They were kind new. She should probably find the missing one. ) but she can hear a smile in his voice.
Oh, his voice. This fucking deep, silky voice. How is his voice so attractive too? He could do porn with this voice alone. He could record Fifty Shades audiobook and she would buy it and listen to it on repeat, over and over again.
He kneels down in front of her and suddenly, he gently raises her chin up and she forgets to breathe, just like every time she catches him looking at her during her lacrosse practice.
Roy Mustang is so pretty. He’s so pretty it should be illegal. She would think it’s because she’s so drunk, but no, he’s just – he’s just Roy.
“ Hi, Riza.” He says and it’s so warm; he is so warm, with his dark eyes and small smile and cheeks pink from frost. There is a red scarf around his neck and mittens on his hands. And he has a jacket – a nice, thick winter jacket, just like her blue one ( the fuck, where are her things?). He looks so cuddly and perfect that all she wants is to have his arms wrapped around her and holding her forever.
But she’s not gonna say that. She’s not gonna let it slip. Drunk or not, she still has at least some of her dignity left.
“Hi, Roy.”
Her voice sounds a little bit breathless, but it’s probably due to this fucking schnapps.
“ Are you having fun?” he asks, but she cannot think of a decent answer, because his fingers are still holding her chin up. Her whole face tingles. Her head spins. She has forgotten English totally and the only words she remembers are in German.
So she just shrugs and he laughs at that; throws his head back and laughs deeply, and she should probably feel offended, but it’s a nice laugh. Nice like everything about Roy. Like his hands and shoulders and messy hair. Nice like his intelligence and brightness and kindness. Like the fact that he can speak Ancient Latin and loves physics so much that he can make even the most boring things interesting by just talking about them.
There is not a single mean bone in Roy Mustang’s body, as much as he wants to hide this good heart of his under flirting and goofiness. Maybe that’s why she likes him so much.
Or maybe it’s because he’s so fucking hot and he goddamn knows it too well already-
A soft melody echoes on the stairwell, so different from the previous rock beats that it derails Riza’s sloppy train of thoughts and makes Roy stop laughing. She knows this song from somewhere – she thinks that Ross sent it to her like a couple months ago. And that means that Brosh probably managed to somehow gain control over DJ control in desperate hopes of buttering Maria up.
Huh, not your league, boy.
Sweet tones of ukulele, velvety voice of a vocalist. What a nice song, the kind of song that they play at weddings and things like that. The type of song that should play during the finale of an old movie with Audrey Hepburn, during the grand kiss scene.
And nothing matters when we're dancing
In tats or tatters you're entrancing
Be we in Paris or in Lansing
Nothing matters when we're dancing
Roy listens for a moment, humming along with the rhythm and then he chuckles softly. His eyes lock with hers again and she knows it stupid and hopeless and pathetic really, but her heart loses a beat or two. He still has this soft smile on his silly, silly face and, when he offers her a hand, she could swear his dark irises shine like in those fucking paper-back romance books she loved in high school
“Wanna dance, Riza?”
She awkwardly raises her bare foot up from the concrete ( which, as she regrettably notices, started to feel a little bit cold. Maybe she should’ve had one more cup before escaping the fun)
“Uh, I think I don’t have a shoe.”
At that, he leans closer; suddenly his face is way too close to hers for comfort. His breath smells of coffee and cigarettes and she immediately gets self-conscious because my god, I must smell like those homeless alcoholics that camp in front of the 7-eleven.
“Don’t worry about that.” He says, gently taking her hand in his; it’s so warm. She melts a little when his thumb circles on her skin soothingly. “ We’ll make it work.”
She somehow believes him. She thinks she would always believe Roy Mustang, no matter what he was telling her.
And so she leans into him and lets him pull her up.
You've never been more beautiful
Your eyes like two full moons
As here in this poor old dancehall
Among the dreadful tunes
***
The morning comes accompanied with Riza’s best friends; stone-crushing headache and a vague sense of dread.
It takes her a while to note that yes, she is in her own bed, dressed in her own pajamas. She had somehow even managed to clean yesterday’s makeup, what a miracle! At least she supposes she did that, because if not her, then who?
Definitely not Rebecca, whose absence is apparent; Becky has a tendency to snore terribly if drunk. Riza is going to waste precious energy to worry about her – as for her calculations, there is around 98% chance her roommate is currently sleeping soundly and snoring in certain annoying blond chain-smoker's bed.
Riza slowly collects herself, sitting up and waiting for a minute or two for the room to stop spinning in front of her eyes and is just about to go take a shower when something catches her attention.
Her phone’s screen is glowing softly, her lock screen visible along with Messenger app notification announcing that she has One new message from: Becky.
What? Becky was even drunker than her last evening. It’s probably something hilariously weird or Jean telling her he handled Rebecca. Or, god forbid, some photo they snapped while undressing.
( it has happened before. She doesn’t want to think about it now, especially when she’s so nauseous from this devilish schnapps)
Anyway, nothing urgent, but she should probably take a look.
The message turns out to be simple: rows and rows of exclamation points and a photo.
A single photo, a little bit blurry, as if the hand of the person taking it was shaking, but clear enough to see the scene captured on it - there is a concrete emergency staircase in front of Dorm Building Number 8 and two people on it.
Roy Mustang is holding her in his arms; even their feet are visible, her bare ones resting on his worn-out, brown boots. She has her face obscured by his chest, buried in the material of his jacket; he has his chin propped up on the crown of her head and his lips curve in the single goofiest, silliest smile she has ever seen in her entire life.
She stands frozen in the middle of her room, unmoving for a solid five minutes and staring at the picture; she can literally feel the panic attack approaching. Her toes already start to tingle. And then phone beeps and she does the most reasonable thing in this situation, so drops it on the floor in panic.
Leaning down, she unlocks the (slightly more scratched than before) screen with a shaking hand, only to find a text.
Roy Mustang: Hey, you’re up? How is your head;)? Wanna grab a coffee, maybe?
Riza slowly looks around. Becky’s not here. Everyone else is probably sleeping. So…
She closes her eyes, takes a deep, deep breath and lets out a decidedly un-dignified shriek of joy.
With her cheeks burning and eyes shining, she texts back:
I’m up. It’s okay. And yes ;)
Damn Rebecca.