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Riza tries as hard as she can, but she can’t reach the back of her head with her brush, and she can feel a massive tangle back there, that, if Mama had seen, would have gotten her sat down on a stool in the kitchen for at least an hour while Mama clucked her tongue and gently untangled it with her sweet-smelling hair stuff and lots of water.
Riza wipes her wet eyes with the back of her hands and scrambles off of the bathroom counter, brush in hand. She needs Papa’s help, and Papa hates when she cries.
She hesitates, hand poised to knock on the door of Papa’s study, but grips the brush tighter, takes a deep breath, and knocks anyways.
“Enter.”
Riza has to shove her shoulder into the door to get it to open, but at least this time, it’s not sealed shut with one of Papa’s alchemy circles.
Papa is bent over his desk. His long hair is tangled down his back, too, and there’s no fire burning in the fireplace. There’s only a single, solitary candle lit on his desk, which is utterly covered in his papers. He doesn’t even look up as she comes in.
“Papa, I-”
“What are you interrupting me for, girl?”
“I, I need help-”
“Why can’t you do it yourself?” Papa’s voice is cold.
Riza swallows thickly. “My hair, Papa, it’s tangled, and-”
“I’m far too busy. Go get your mother to-” Papa cuts off suddenly. His head bows further, his hand shaking around his pen, and Riza can feel her chest tightening.
That happens to Papa sometimes. Like he forgets that Mama’s gone. Like he thinks she’s just gone to visit Grandfather for the week and will be back on the last train.
“Get out.”
“But-”
“Out!” He roars. In one fluid movement, he throws down his pen, picks up his inkwell and hurls it at the door.
Riza manages to duck before it hits her directly, but the glass shatters above her head, and cold ink drenches her hair as shards of glass hit her forearms.
She stifles her sobs as best she can, but they rise up in her chest anyways. Papa’s staring at her, eyes wide, and he makes a move towards her, as if to brush off the glass, but Riza wrenches the door open and shoots down the hallway before he can touch her.
The bathroom downstairs next to the guest room Grandfather used to use has a lock, and Riza checks it three times to make sure she’s latched it as tight as it goes before she tries to take a breath. It comes out scratchy and cut-off, like her throat’s not as big as it should be, and when Riza looks in the mirror, it feels even smaller.
The blonde of her hair is saturated with the filmy black ink, and it even caught the sleeves of her last remaining dress that fits correctly. There’s a cut on the top of her forehead that’s bleeding sluggishly. A piece of inky glass is caught in the largest cut on the back of her hand, and it takes her at least ten minutes to pick it out in between sobs.
Finally, she sticks her hand under the faucet to rinse out anything she might have missed, and opens the cabinet to find an old dish rag to wrap it in.
Mama’s old shears are sitting next to the dishrags. They’re slightly rusted and far too unwieldy for sewing dainty things, which is why Papa had bought her a new pair for her birthday last year. Riza stares at them for a second, hand bleeding into her dress, before she grabs them and a dishrag without another second of hesitation.
She has to climb back onto the cabinet so that she can see in the mirror. They’re even harder to use than she remembers, especially with the rag wrapped around her palm, but it doesn’t matter.
Riza takes a deep breath, raises the scissors to her head, and begins to cut.
Papa doesn’t even comment on her hair, which is now shorter than how even some of the boys wear it, when he appears in the kitchen to make a pot of coffee the next morning. His eyes flit over her wrapped hand, the blood dried on her head, but he only turns away from her and goes back to his study without another word.
It becomes a routine of sorts.
Every month or so, when her hair starts flopping into her eyes, Riza locks herself in the downstairs bedroom with Mama’s old scissors, and cuts it as carefully as she can manage. She keeps her eyes fixed on her head as she does so, and tries as hard as she might to not think about all the braids Mama used to fix in her hair, the way her hands would twist light, dusky blue and soft yellow ribbons in them for special occasions.
And then she takes fistfuls of her hair and keeps them to be thrown into the fire to be burned when the wood’s low, and she doesn’t knock on her father’s study again.
It takes Roy some getting used to, living on the Hawkeye Estate. It’s constantly dark and creaky, even though it’s spring, and the fields are bright with flowers, and it’s so- so quiet.
His sisters were always so loud. Roy used to hate it, banging on the wall at midnight to get them to just stop chattering and playing their dumb records, but now, in the suffocating silence of these hallways, he desperately misses it.
Misses them. He really does miss his sisters. And Aunt Chris. He should call home. It’s Maria’s birthday in a few days, and she’ll get so pissy with him if he forgets. He won't hear the end of it for months, that’s for sure.
Roy’s so wrapped up in trying to remember whose birthday comes next- is it Connie? Or, no, it’s Miriam’s, isn’t it, she’s turning twenty-one- that he nearly passes the strange sight in the downstairs bathroom on his way to the kitchen without thinking about it, and has to double back.
Master Hawkeye’s little wisp of a daughter is kneeling on the bathroom sink, peering into the mirror. Her normally big, round eyes are narrowed in concentration, and she’s got a fistful of hair in one hand and a pair of huge shears in the other, poised as if she’s going to hack it off.
Roy bites back a gasp, glances up at the stairs instinctively before he remembers Master Hawkeye is gone for the next three days to the next town over for some “research supplies”, and then he opens the bathroom door the rest of the way.
“What are you doing?” He demands.
Ms. Hawkeye startles badly and begins to falls backwards off the counter, windmilling her arms. Roy rushes forward and steadies her. Her cheeks flush a bright pink, and she shoves his hands off of her shoulders. Roy takes a step back, hands up.
“I’m- I’m cutting my hair?” She offers, lifting up the scissors.
“Yeah, no, I saw that,” Roy says dryly, and Ms. Hawkeye scowls slightly, before she seems to remember herself and her face molds back into its neutral mask.
“I like it short.” She says primly, smoothing her pinafore apron over her dress.
“Yeah, okay, I like mine short too, but why are you going at it like you’re whacking wheat?”
“I’m not- I’m not whacking wheat-“ she splutters. “I’m just cutting it! Don’t you have readings to do, anyways?”
“Finished them.” Roy waves her off. “And you’re cutting it badly!”
“How would you know?” She says crossly, and lifts her hand as if she’s going to cut it anyways.
Roy makes a choked sound and grabs the scissors out of her hands. “Because I know what I’m talking about! My sisters cut hair all the time!”
“Your sisters?” Ms. Hawkeye wrinkles her nose. “You have sisters?”
“Only twelve of them!” Roy throws his hands in the air. “And trust me, if they saw what you were doing to your hair, they’d have you sitting in a chair in the kitchen with all their stupid hair products so fast-”
“Well, I want it short, what am I supposed to do?”
It’s the closest Roy’s ever heard her come to snapping, and he almost has to suppress a smile. Ms. Hawkeye is usually so quiet, slinking around the house like a ghost, as if she’s afraid to make a noise, eyes downcast. There’s something so nice about the lively annoyance in her eyes, the flush on her cheeks, bringing out her freckles.
Roy grins and holds up the scissors. “I’ll cut it for you.”
Ms. Hawkeye looks dubious. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Do you?”
“...You can cut it.”
Roy cards his fingers through the top of her hair one more time, and is finally satisfied that it’s even. “Okay, take a look. Whaddaya think?”
Ms. Hawkeye’s eyes meet his in the mirror, and her entire face softens. She lifts a hand to touch the top. Roy had done his best to cut it the way Delilah had hers done right before he left, with a deep side part so that her hair curls over her forehead, which hides a nasty scar he’d seen by her hairline. She looks almost entranced.
“Well?” Roy prods. “You like it?”
Ms. Hawkeye nods, not tearing her eyes away from the mirror. “It’s… It’s pretty.”
Roy grins. “‘Course it is! I did it!”
He watches her face flush again, and she ducks her head and hops off the counter, straightening her dress and squaring her shoulders. “Thank you, Mr. Mustang,” She says solemnly. “Now, I really must go start dinner.”
Roy sticks his head out of the bathroom as she disappears down the hallway, and shouts, “Anytime, Ms. Hawkeye!”
The soft September rains patter softly on the windowpane. Riza’s swinging her legs, sitting backwards on a kitchen chair and watching the rain drip down the glass absent-mindedly as Roy trims the sides of her hair. The house is quiet, but the kind of easy quiet that can only exist in the rare moments that Papa is gone. So, Riza can allow herself to swing her legs and listen to Roy hum, and maybe even think about finishing the novel she’d gotten from the school library after dinner tonight.
She feels Roy dust off her shoulders for any stray hair.
“Done!” He declares.
Riza gets up to peer at her reflection in the window, shaking her head experimentally. That’s the best part of getting her hair cut- the way it feels as though a weight’s been lifted from her.
“Looks good!” She says approvingly. She turns around to thank Roy, and finds him seated in the chair she just vacated, scissors held out towards her, and his eyes wide and pleading, bottom lip jutted out.
“Please?”
“Roy.”
“Riza, going to town to cut my hair is such a pain, and I know you can do better than Old Man Grayson-”
“You made fun of my haircutting skills for a solid month when you first got here!”
“That was two whole years ago, Riza! I’m a grown man now, I would never make fun of a lady! ‘Sides, you know Aunt Chris gets so annoyed when I have to wire for more pocket money-”
“You wouldn’t have to if you stopped buying sweets at the bakery.”
“Oh, please, as if you don’t eat half of it.”
“I’m not cutting your hair!”
“Aw, but I cut yours every month!”
“Yeah, but if I mess yours up, you’re gonna make fun of me again!”
“I would never!” Roy gasps dramatically. “Why, Ms. Hawkeye-”
“Shut up.”
“-how could you accuse me of such a thing, I-”
“I said shut up!”
“-me, a perfect gentleman, I can’t believe-”
“I’ll cut your stupid hair!” Riza snatches the scissors out of his hands, just to shut him up.
It works. Roy’s mouth snaps shut and he grins. “Thank you, my lady.”
“I’ll shave your head if you say that again,” she threatens, grabbing the comb off the table.
“Do what you want, I’ll look handsome regardless,.” Roy says airily
Riza snorts, looks at the scissors in her hands, and then at Roy’s silky black hair, which is falling far past his collar. “I really don’t know how to do this.”
“Just start small,” Roy instructs. “Comb the hair out, and snip off the hair that’s coming off the comb. Easy-peasy.”
“If I do this wrong…” Riza warns, and runs the comb through a back section first, so it won’t be so noticeable if she messes up.
“You won’t.” Roy’s tone isn’t teasing anymore. “You’ve got steady hands, Riza. You’ll be fine.”
“You say that now,” Riza says, but makes her first cut anyways. The black hair flutters down to the kitchen floor, mixing with the blonde that’s already piled there.
It’s actually not so hard to get the hang of. Roy’s eyes slip shut, after a while, and the kitchen falls silent, the only sounds the shearing of the scissors and the rain hitting the window.
Riza is shivering as she sits on the edge of her bed.
The house has been cold for nearly a year- every since Roy left- but now it’s freezing.
Has it always been this quiet? Has the wood always creaked like this, the pipes always squealed?
(Did her father pace in his study? Is that what she’s hearing now, the banging down the hall?)
No.
No, Berthold Hawkeye is lying cold and motionless in the basement at Doctor Miller’s practice. His feet won’t move again. His hands are still. They won’t touch her again. Never again. Never again.
She pulls the thick sweater that’s far too big for her tighter around her as her back prickles painfully, and shuts her eyes. It’s healed. It won’t hurt again. He can’t hurt her again.
When she opens her eyes and looks into the mirror across from her bed, it’s a stranger’s face looking back. Someone gaunt and pale, bones jutting out under skin that’s stretched too thin, limp hair that nearly brushes her shoulders, because she couldn’t lift her arms to cut it herself for so many months.
Someone nearly dead.
She glances down at the telegram crumpled in her hand again, reads it for what must be the hundredth time in an hour.
HEARD WHAT HAPPENED COMING NOW STOP WILL ARRIVE IN TWO DAYS STOP
Cadet Third Class Roy Mustang
Central Military Academy
She’s not dead.
She’s not cold on a slab.
She won’t be anytime soon.
Riza stands up, heads to the downstairs bathroom, locks the door, finds her mother’s rusted shears behind the towels Roy left behind, and gets to work.
Roy was utterly convinced that there was nothing that could make Ishval more of a hell on Earth. How could anything top the rivers of blood that cut through mountainous dunes?
Or the pile of disposed gloves by his bedroll, the flint in the fingers too worn out to make a spark?
Or how the smell of burnt bodies- charcoal that used to be human, a bonfire that used to be a village- doesn’t even bother his stomach anymore?
And then an Ishvalan who would have put a knife through his throat sinks down to the ground, blood oozing from a bullet through his forehead, and Riza Hawkeye emerges from the shadows.
Roy can’t even speak as she slips her hood down. Her face is skeletal, the bags under her eyes bruises. Her hair is nearly shorn down to the scalp, uneven and bloody in patches. Her hands don’t even shake as she reloads her rifle and clicks the safety back on. And her eyes, as she stares at him. Dull. Lifeless.
Roy thinks she looks like she’s already dead.
“What are you doing here?” He whispers. You shouldn’t be here, he thinks. You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be-
“I just saved your life,” her voice is as toneless as her face is expressionless. “that’s the first thing you want to say to me?”
“Riza, I-“
“Major.” She cuts him off. Roy glances at her collar. Two worn insignia patches, with one bar of gold crossing a lion’s head, are sewn into the fabric.
“Cadet First Class” He says softly.
Riza’s head bows.
“You never- you joined the military? Why, why-”
“You.” She says, and it’s like she’s put the barrel of her rifle against his head. “You said you were going to help, so I wanted to, too. You wanted to defend this country, so did I. “Be thou for the people”, right?” Riza laughs. It sounds wrong. “Is that what you’re doing, Flame Alchemist?”
Roy stares at her. It’s not as though he can- or will- defend himself.
If only she’d been a moment too late to stop that Ishvalan.
(If only Roy had never learned flame alchemy. If only Roy had never taken the State Alchemist Exam. If only he’d gone the way of Armstrong and gotten sent home. If only, if only, if only-)
“It’s my fault.” Riza says.
Roy jerks his head up. “No, it’s not.”
“I showed you. I gave you the tools to do this.” She gestures at the smoke rising from the sector Roy had been told to clear today, a mile away. “If I didn’t, you would have never been able to-”
“It’s my hands.” Roy interrupts, before she can say another word, dig another knife into his side. “My hands did it. Not yours.”
Riza laughs again. Roy thinks it sounds closer to a sob. “Then I am just as culpable.”
Roy can’t bear to ask what she means by that. So it falls silent instead, the only sounds distant explosions, the patrol of night watch.
Late that night, when Riza has saluted him sharply, turned on her heel, and disappeared into the night, and Roy has dragged himself into the tent he shares with Hughes and somehow gotten himself to lay horizontal on his bedroll, he thinks about the insignia on her collar.
Cadet First Class.
She’s not even commissioned yet. She should be at the academy still- safe, whole, somewhere where taking lives is a hypothetical, and not an event that leaves blood under your fingernails and iron coating your throat.
She’s nineteen, a cadet, and there’s blood on her hands and ink on her back. She never wanted either, and Roy could have prevented both.
Roy turns on his side and pulls his head to his knees to ward off the nausea that crests over him in a drowning wave.
He feels a great deal older than twenty-three these days, but he’s never felt closer to a grave than he does right now.
Maybe Roy’s making it up, but the smell of burnt flesh seems to have permeated into every room in his apartment.
He keeps every window open, though it’s barely April, lights candles, opens the doors so air can move through, and it does nothing for the sickly sweet stench that seems to have taken permanent residence in his nose.
“Does it smell in here?” He asks Riza for what’s probably the fifth time in an hour.
Riza glances up from the newspaper she’s reading. She’s flat on her stomach on his bed, propped up on pillows, a loose, borrowed cardigan draped over the thick bandaging Roy had changed just last night. Three weeks has been enough time for the skin underneath to begin to develop into bright pink welts of scarring, though she’s just been starting to tolerate any sort of fabric on top of the bandages within the last few days.
“No, why?” She asks.
“No reason.” Roy says.
She narrows her eyes at him for a second, and then turns back to the newspaper. Her hair falls into her eyes as she does so, and she can’t hide the wince that comes over her face as she reaches up to tuck it behind her ears.
Roy has to pull his hand back to keep from doing it for her. “I’m going to go make dinner,” he says.
“Alright, sir.”
Roy only gets three steps away down the hallway before he impulsively turns on his heel and heads back to the bedroom door. “Lieutenant,”
She looks up at him. Her hair slips from its holding place behind her ear again.
“Do you want me to cut your hair?”
Riza has gotten scarily good at hiding her emotions in the past years, but she’s not able to disguise the look of surprise that comes over her face. “My-my hair?”
“You just look like it’s bothering you. I- you don’t have to, I just thought I’d offer, it’s alright-”
“Yes.” She interrupts him. “Please.”
Roy can’t help but just look at her for a minute before he shakes himself. “I’ll go get the scissors.”
Riza sits on the toilet cover and tugs Roy’s sweater tighter around her as he snips away. The blonde hair that falls at her feet seems like, perhaps, it was never attached to her in the first place.
She almost falls asleep there, with Roy running his fingers through her hair, the distant thrumming of Roy’s icebox.
“Done.” Roy says, and lifts his hands from her hair. Riza almost immediately misses them. She stands unsteadily, waves off Roy’s hands as they try to help her stand, and looks at herself in the sink.
It’s shorter than she’s worn it in months. The sides are clipped around her ears, and there’s a deep part that strategically covers the scar along her hairline and curls over her forehead.
Her face is still gaunt. Her eyes are still hollow, still deeply bruised underneath, still empty.
But Riza thinks- standing in this small bathroom, with Roy behind her, her father’s research finally gone from her skin, and her hair out of her face- maybe she looks just a little bit more like herself again.