interstellar5555 | Wise men say...

Entry tags:

Wise men say...

Who: Roy Mustang & Riza Hawkeye
What: Roy has to spend Valentine's performing for happy couples but ~~due to popular demand~~ he doesn't have to spend the entire evening alone
When: The evening of Feb 14th
Where: An old school club with a stage somewhere in Vista City
Warnings: Brief mention of previous torture and bad war memories. Romantic mush. Might give shippers feels.

The preview performances and interviews for the album were over. Minus some drinking and new ink Roy had been well behaved while making his way through the busy schedule Pride had thrown at him. It occurred to him after several days of growing clarity that his intoxicated trip to the tattoo parlor had been less of a rebellious gesture and more of a desperate attempt to feel like he had some control left. He knew now what Pride was capable of- death had been dealt to people before him, and he was somehow not his "real self" all thanks to Pride. It took much strength not to despair.

The evening of the fourteenth Roy is relieved to be accompanied by a single body guard to a dinnertime performance at one of the old fashioned clubs out in the city. A smaller crowd awaits him in the dimly lit dining area; someone had forked over a pretty penny to Pride requesting that Mustang show up there to sing the love songs from his album to set the mood for their date. Sitting up on a humble stage with an acoustic guitar in his lap while his body guard is off taking care of unexpected car troubles leaves him feeling relief he hasn't had in what seems like ages.

"This one goes out to a very special woman," he dares to dedicate his final song of the evening, laughing on the inside at the idea of sending the paparazzi chasing their tails trying to find someone he himself was still trying to figure out. The shy girl in the old house, the woman from the battlefield sitting quietly beside him, the woman on the street corner walking her dog who hasn't yet realized he's watching her from across the street with a fond smile. "Elizabeth, you know who you are." The audience, mostly made up of couples, chuckle softly and he begins to play.

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After 3 had passed the autographed picture (seriously? it's not like Riza couldn't sign his name as well, if not better than he could) and download code to her, there was no way Riza could just write things off as being pure coincidence. Luckily the promotional tour wasn't a complete secret, so with just a little investigation she was able to figure out the best location to try and create that second meeting.

She hadn't paid too much attention to the mention of Valentine's or couples considering she had no experience with the one and wasn't interested in the other, but Riza had taken measures to look a bit more like she belong there by spending some of her newly found wages on, what the store clerk said was the perfect outfit to attract attention after she'd mentioned where she was going. It left her wondering if 3 had been there as well--Riza wouldn't put it past the girl.

By the time she arrives the performance is almost over, all but the last song and she walks in just in time to hear the dedication. It's hard not to turn around and walk back out before someone directs her to a table off to the side of the stage. There was a part of her hoping he couldn't see her, wouldn't see her, not with all of this.

Lucky for Riza, the stage spotlight does a good job of shining in Roy's eyes, making the rest of the room look even darker and turning most audience members into silhouettes. He finishes his final song and takes a couple bows, thanking the audience as they applaud him. It's as he gives them a last few waves and thank you's that he sees her sitting there alone at one of the side tables. He freezes for just a second, wondering if the lighting is tricking his eyes, then he slips behind the curtain and the stage lights go out. The guests finish clapping and return their focus to their sweet hearts.

Behind stage Roy puts his guitar away safely in its case and checks his phone for messages from his body guard. Nothing yet. Between the car breaking down and all the nighttime traffic there was a chance he'd have to take a taxi back to Pride HQ. Roy's heart bangs away in his chest, a storm of different emotions fighting inside of him. He clasps his hands in thought, weighing his options, taking deep breaths, trying to keep calm.

On one hand he feels everything a normal person would feel in this situation: embarrassment that the lady who looked just like his muse had appeared against all odds and likely heard the dedication. Worry that she might now think he's a creep for nicknaming his muse and album after her- and getting her name inked on his arm. Right. Oh boy.

His situation however is not normal at all. The ghosts had made it clear, his visions or memories whichever they were made it clear, his recent torture by Pride had made it clear. Stronger than any embarrassment he finds himself caught between the decision to obey Pride or approach "Elizabeth." He ought to call the body guard up, tell him to take him away. Instead Roy messages his guard that he's catching a taxi back to HQ, "After all we were lucky enough to evade the paparazzi tonight. Thank you!" He lies, says he's tired and he'll be at the penthouse. His heart keeps pounding as he types and sends the messages. Santiago will likely kill him if she hears of him disobeying again. Against that logic, he pulls himself together. He straightens his black tie and vest, and finally slips out into the dining area to find "Elizabeth."

When he sees her again, he instantly feels calmer. Fear and brainwashing aside, simply by instinct he feels assurance and stability with her nearby. He walks up to her table with a confident poker face. "Hey, Elizabeth," he greets her, "It's nice to see you again."

If she had any idea what he'd been through recently, Riza would have argued the sheer stupidity of risking a meeting with her. Yes, she had been the one to initiate contact (or, at least, show up in the general vicinity) but that didn't mean he needed to engage. If he were in his right mind he would know that as they've been there before, there are ways to get around even the tightest watch.

As it is, she's pretty oblivious to the truth. Thankfully so for the sake of some people. Still, she doesn't expect him to just show up at her table. Riza had come to see him perform and if they could talk again fine. If not, that would be fine as well.

From what she'd seen the record companies weren't too keen on letting their stars too much freedom. And as this was supposed to be some kind of holiday, there was no reason for him to stick around. She wasn't going to be there much longer given how strange listening to him had been. It wasn't like Mammon had mentioned, but in a way that wasn't easy to accept. There was too much going on that only one of them truly understood.

So she's sitting there with a glass of wine to fulfil her minimum drink requirement when he shows up. "Imagine meeting you, here." As if he wasn't the reason she was there.

"Happy Valentine's Day. Are you here with someone special?" He might has well ask. For all he knows whatever feelings he's projecting onto her that he has for his muse are inappropriately aimed towards a taken heart. It would explain why she's dressed in such a stunning outfit.

"I'm here alone tonight to perform for the happy couples. The body guard is away getting the car towed to a garage. Engine problems no doubt judging by the amount of heat coming out from under the hood." He had not told the body guard that. Anything to buy a little more free time.

"It's just me." If she had a better understanding of the day, she might be a little more reserved about her answer, but there's never been any reason to feel awkward or strange when it comes to the fact that she's usually alone. Especially in public.

There's a tip of her head toward the other seat, "Sounds like you might be waiting a little while then. I can't image he'll be back anytime soon."

At her invitation Roy takes a seat, his actual confidence level growing to the point he barely has to pretend. It doesn't hurt that she seems to be both single and still pleased with his presence even after the dedication to someone with her name.

"Thank you. I'm sorry our conversation last time was cut off so suddenly. Pride is terrible about assuming that anyone outside of the music industry will cause trouble. And yet they still put their artists up to hours of autographs. Such strange policies." He sighs, thinking to himself that it makes more sense now why the label known for parties would so rarely invite groupies to join in.

"How have you been? I hope Vista City has been treating you well. Did you see the ocean yet?"

How does someone bring up, 'so that dedication...me?' into the general conversation? No, she'll take the easier route and just go around that particular trap for the moment.

"I don't know, I think I'd want to keep someone so important to me safe as well." It's an easy thing to say even if the record company's definition of important is a far cry from her own. "Everyone should have someone they want to protect." Or follow. She'd promised to do both and look where it led them.

"Not yet," she has to admit. It was on her list of things to do, but, "I picked up a new job recently that's kept me busy, so I haven't had a chance to enjoy my time off yet." That and most of her time off was spent doing things like investigating what she could, keeping up with the others, and catching up on what knowledge she needed to learn.

If Pride were a normal music label he would have shown her the ocean by now- even brought her to the HQ to see it from a balcony or taken her to that aquarium he had mentioned before. Pride Records, more like Anti-Social Life Records. But enough getting distracted by complaints about the company in his head. Elizabeth is here in front of him and he should make the most of this time.

"Good to hear. Where do you work?" he asks. Maybe he can visit and speak with her there without suspicion, just like he knows the staff of Thistle Do Nicely: Flowers and Gifts after his multiple purchases there.

"It's a company that does extra security for some of the local clubs during special events." So it was very likely they'd see each other quite often while one of them were working. "I've been told I'm quite scary when provoked," she'd even teased him about it as Elizabeth, how he needed to get to work so his scary Lieutenant wouldn't yell at him.

"It's a good opportunity until something else comes along." She can't really complain about the potential intel. "And I get to listen to all the music for free." Although some music was more to her tastes than others; the same could be said for some of the musicians as well. For instance, she is not telling him about having met his bandmate the previous night. "It's been an interesting experience so far."

It's for the best she doesn't mention Squalo and his terrible behavior -for Squalo's safety. Roy still hadn't completely let go of the initial knife-point confrontation with his bandmate. Squalo's eyebrows had been in danger of getting burned off from the start. Why make it worse?

Roy lights up at the revelation; no need to trick a security guard or a car breaking down, they'd practically be seeing each other with Pride's permission. "I hope to see you at one of the clubs in the future then. I'm sure we will. MANTICORE plays VIP performances at local clubs all the time. And- Well you might have seen some of own performance tonight." He gives a small chuckle. Oh right. The dedication. Since he brought the subject up he might has well brave her reaction. "I released my own album. Don't know if you heard."

"I'll just have to make sure I'm available anytime you're playing. It would be a shame for anything to happen to you or your fans if I could prevent it." She'd already made sure her boss knew she'd work any time they needed her in the first place, but especially if her favorite band was performing.

Of course at the mention of his album, the one that 3 was completely convinced was named after her, she was torn between confronting him about it or ignoring the questions that kept popping up. There had to be something in between right?

"I know. I missed most of the show, sorry, but I've heard the album." He could thank 3 and her boundless romanticism for that. "You actually gave a friend of mine the coupon for it along with a picture." Not that she knows how that conversation went or that Roy thought Liz was a child. "She was very excited to pass them along."

Hold on. That sounds familiar... There were only oh so many Elizabeth's and Liz's in the world. He only had a limited number of those coupons to give out too.

"Really?" Roy leans forward in his seat. "Your friend. Is she a young girl named Emma? Short. Fancy headphones."

"She made that much of an impression did she?" Riza laughs at the thought but it's mostly nervousness. Emma was a bit odd. If she'd accidentally said or done anything that would bring attention to the rescuers, well it wouldn't be good.

"She's a good kid. A little strange and eager, but good all the same."

Roy is so busy playing back his conversation with 3 in his head, he doesn't notice Riza's slip of nervousness. How had "Emma" put it? "She's a long time fan, like since forever." "She is going to be happier than a clam. You'll make her day. Her week!" "I know Liz is going to love it! She thinks about you all the time."

Slowly, slowly, Roy swallows and forces himself to sit up straight in his seat again. It's difficult not to start looking like he's just been surprised in the most wonderful way, which try as he might to hide, he does. Elizabeth... thinks about him all the time? Elizabeth doesn't mind the album name or the dedication she just witnessed? By some miracle he mostly hides the victorious shouts inside of his head.

"Yes. She seemed very enthusiastic and sweet." He's barely thinking about "Emma" right now though. He clears his throat to try dismissing any tension but it doesn't do much to help.

"Did you... like the album?" Is it getting hot in here?

She's known him for almost half her life, so there are very few things he can hide from her under normal circumstances. This just happens to be as far from normal as it gets, so she definitely notices. Riza has no idea what happened, however. The last good, strange, but eager kid they'd dealt with was Alphonse Elric, but even he didn't match up to Emma's truth.

"Yes." It had been a surprise, but she really had. It wasn't as if she had any idea what to expect from an album of songs all directed toward her. Oh, he'll be embarrassed by all of this eventually, but it's nice all the same. She ends up looking down at her glass for a moment before adding, "It sounds like you really mean it."

Roy's mind races. Suddenly it's very difficult to speak. Any sort of confirmation is like telling her how much he's interested in her, and then there are the visions and the woman.

"Thank you. It was my intention for every song to be sincere," he says, glancing downward at the table immediately after saying it. There's that tension in the air again. There's so much more he needs to say. He has heard one too many whispers about other lives and real selves at Pride to skirt around the subject. How could he dream about her before meeting her at the library?

His determination sets in place, and he looks at her, speaks to her in a tone that is more like his regular self than anything she has heard from him since he was taken. "If you don't mind, I'd like to tell you a story, actually, related to my album. I haven't told anyone else yet and I've been hoping that somehow we'd meet again so you could be the first person I tell it to."

This is so many levels of strange she wouldn't know where to begin explaining it to anyone else. From the whole music deal to the faulty brainwashing, it's almost like living out some stupid book. She can't just turn to the back and find out how it ends, however.

She'd recognize that voice anywhere and quickly straightens up in her seat without thinking about it. Once she does, though, Riza leans forward arms crossed over the table top. "You can tell me anything." She wants to add, you've always been able to, but she has to hold that back for both their sakes.

It doesn't make sense to open up this much to a woman he has only spoken to once before now. You can tell me anything. He trusts every word of that though.

"Imagine this. There used to be a musician named Baryl, a drummer. He and his band signed on with a big shot label and the audiences loved them. Everything seemed perfect. But then he and his bandmates realized that their music label was not what it seemed. In fact their CEO, the villain of this story, was running a corrupt business and tortured anyone who disobeyed their orders. One day Baryl's band did something that made their boss so angry that the band was executed." He bows his head and stares at the table top again. He clenches his fists, he can feel his heart beating in his stomach, the thought of Pride and its torture devices crying out for him to stop. Do not disobey or suffer the consequences.

"But that's not the end of the story. It's just the start." He looks back into her eyes and feels some relief. She's there with him and he's stronger when they're together. He can do this. "Baryl and his band came back to haunt their label as ghosts. They wanted to warn the other musicians about the truth. They saw other people taken from their lives and tortured, brainwashed, into joining and obeying the company. So Baryl did his best to communicate with them. Knock things over in their rooms, flicker the lights, play music, and try to use what means he had to trigger memories so the brainwashed artists could remember who they really were. The CEO caught on and trapped one of Baryl's bandmates, hoping to prevent the truth from coming out."

Roy pauses and squeezes his eyes shut, drawing in a long shaking breath. Just saying that much has him quivering inside with the fear Lesedi had conditioned him with. She'll kill him. He has said more than enough for her to end his life.

He leans forward and presses his fists down on the table in front of him, wishing he could ask "Elizabeth" to hold him steady and help him stop from shaking. "Eventually, Baryl found some musicians willing to help him free his bandmate. Before they went to save the other ghost, Baryl told them all the truth. That they were not themselves. In the end they freed Baryl's bandmate but the CEO arrived and punished the musicians who had helped them. She ingrained them with fear and doubts, but even after they were hurt they never forgot what Baryl had told them. They never forgot what the ghosts had helped them remember about themselves."

It takes every bit of strength not to reach out and stop him from saying what he needed to, to watch him work past whatever they'd done and know she was helpless to do anything about it. Every breath she takes is slow and measured, a forced calm as if she were aiming at a target. And wouldn't she prefer to be peering through her scope at each and every person who was responsible for all of this?

It's not a feeling she's used to and it's not one she particularly likes. There was a difference between being a sniper in the military who followed orders and imagining the deaths of others for any other reason. She didn't care for either, but she could reconcile herself to the previous definition of herself.

She lets him finish telling her about these ghosts (friends of Gold and Silver?) before resting her hand on his much like she'd done at the library. This time, she moves her chair closer to him, to become just like any of the other couples in the club celebrating the day; although the words she ends up whispering to him aren't exactly the same, "Tell me what you remember."

He stares at their hands touching as he lists out things that would sound random to anyone else. "Chess. My comrades were taken away somehow. Berthold Hawkeye. The lab and some lessons. Going into town on errands for him. Random childhood memories in a city and in a bar. I was surrounded by women. Wearing a military uniform. Ishbal. Bloody sand. Burned corpses. A black Shiba Inu."

He looks into her eyes, watching for her reaction. "Almost all of these with a woman." He feels like the name is on the tip of his tongue again and this time it comes out. "Riza Hawkeye. The woman I love." He says it so easily without a drop of hesitation, not knowing everything they've sacrificed for their goals. To him the intimacy he feels is surely a sign of a long loving relationship, perhaps even marriage.

There's a twinkle in his eye as something else returns to him. "Elizabeth. It's a code name."

What is she supposed to do with all of that? There were so many bits and pieces to the grand picture of their lives and then that confession...what was she supposed to about that? That wasn't even something she'd expected. She'd known, they both knew, but there was so much they had to do before they could even think about anything else. Then again, did he even mean it or was it part of everything else?

She tries to keep the pain of that uncertainty out of her demeanor when she replies; the smile doesn't quite reach her eyes, however. "I knew you'd get there eventually."

Roy forces his own smile. She had just confirmed what he suspected, and he is happy to hear it. But, and of course there is a but, his head starts to fill with countless desperate questions about who he is. Not all of them are nice. He knows they both fought as soldiers in a war; he doesn't expect a soldier's memories of battle to be at all pleasant but what troubles him most is when he started to remember it. His time being tortured and held in captivity by Lesedi just a couple weeks before had been what reminded him of Ishbal. Watching Lesedi torture the others while he was powerless to help them must have brought back Ishbal for a reason. This is your fault! she had hissed at him over and over during his conditioning.

It's too soon. He can't bring himself to speak of it or the torture, he can feel a lump grow in his throat when he tries to get himself to ask about it. Sorrow flashes across his face and is replaced by a more genuine smile. For now, there are other things to talk about.

"What did you name that dog again? It was something funny wasn't it?" he asks. "What I remember of him is amusing. He was softer as a pup. Very well disciplined." He gives her a pointed look. "And as friendly and loyal as any good dog." He sighs dramatically. "I've been both impressed by that dog, and so very jealous of all the loving attention he gets from you."

If there were any way to get rid of those memories, she'd do it. No. Actually, neither one of them would do so, it was a part of who they were and why they were doing everything they could to right the mess their country had become. But she'd do what she could to ease the memories for someone who hadn't fully recovered them.

"What's so funny about Black Hayate?" She's not half as annoyed at him for that as she could be--he'd never liked the name, but Roy wasn't the dog's owner was he? "And you shouldn't be," she can't help but offer, "he's better behaved, so of course he gets more attention."

"Black Hayate," Roy snickers and shakes his head at her with a big smirk. "Is he really that much more behaved? If I was a cute little dog I bet you'd pay just as much attention to me like that. Or more plausibly, I might behave better if you gave me some special attention sometimes."

He thinks the idea is hilarious now, oblivious to the baited questions and teasing he receives from their team back home. 'Hey Colonel. Bet you wish the Lieutenant would scratch your belly.' 'Does the Lieutenant ever put a collar or leash on you?' 'Ever get jealous that the dog gets to share a room with her?' among others; just a few of countless comments he has to look forward to remembering.

"Where is he?" Roy realizes. They're far from home, he knows that much. His head hasn't wrapped around the other planet or other technological time period detail yet but what he knows of Amestris does not feel Americana. "Did you bring him with you to Vista City?"

Unlike Roy, she remembers overhearing enough of those comments when no one realized she was around. It was part of dealing with a bunch of idiots in the military for the most part, but it was also telling how quickly he either shut them down or how suddenly the conversation stopped when she returned. Still, his making such remarks has her thankful for the low lights in the club, it hopefully covers up the embarrassed flush that colored her cheeks.

"Hayate never slacked off on his paperwork. And no, I left him at home." She hadn't been sure if they even had dogs on this planet. The idea of another planet had been enough of a problem to wrap her head around, worrying about her dog would have just compounded things. "I wasn't sure what kind of animals they had here."

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