Enigma
By TeriyakiPrinces
Rating: Mature because blood and a lot of swearing and canon-typical violence which makes ff net want to kick me out.
Warnings for the chapter: Feels. Also Roy is a warning in and of himself, so...
Disclaimer: Not mine. To see original content, look up Hiromu Arakawa.
A/N: Reviews, reviews, oh my sweet soul-food. I just finished typing this chappy up, and I couldn't resist messing with you some more.
I am still a monster, but a monster who updates within four days, nevertheless. It's gotta count for something.
Writing the dialogue here (for all that there is little of it) was kinda difficult, so if you want me to clarify anything, shoot me a PM or review (hehe) and I'll explain it for you!
ALSO! I'm creating a poll on my profile, since I've gotten a relatively large amount of requests for one-shots and ficlets related to Enigma, on which you can vote for your favorite three choices. If you have an idea, PM or review with it so I can add it to the poll. Brace yourselves, some of the ao3 requests are extreme. I should have it up in about an hour after this goes up.
Words: 1,213: Less than the last few chapters, but it was important, I think, for this scene to be separate from the ones coming up.
He felt dirty and weary as he watched the girl in front of him down another Schnapps, the hard liquor making her wince imperceptibly as it burned down her throat. He watched with a morbid fascination as she dragged her hand across her mouth before narrowing her eyes at him and his half-empty beer.
"Playing dirty, aint'cha, Cur- Col- Colonel? Hah! Getting a nin'teen year old drunk to ext-e-extract inf- fuck it, info. Am fuckin' dun with this fuckin' lang-language." Maurer slurred and hiccuped her way through her loud declaration, and he realized with little surprise that the young woman was finally and truly drunk to her ears. He felt a sense of somber satisfaction at the fact that she was going to feel it the next morning, as she had robbed him of this month's salary over the last three hours of drinking he had accompanied her on.
He was in Central to investigate his best friend's murder, and this little girl (she was nineteen, barely, but he didn't want to think about the fact that he was ten years her elder) had been on the scene of the crime, had heard Maes' last words, and he needed information.
Getting people drunk usually loosened them up to invasive questions, but this girl, Gaia Maurer, seemed to be a special case. She'd gone through more shots and pints than he could count, and only now could he see the healthy flush of alcohol in her cheeks and across the bridge of her nose.
He would try his luck anyway, in this secluded booth of a back-alley bar. He lent forward, catching the bright green eyes from under hooded eyelids with his own dark stare. "I'll ask you this question once, and only once. I want you to answer me, understood?" The girl-woman nodded blearily, but her eyes held a keen spark that told him she was still at least half-lucid. He wasn't going to risk going bankrupt tonight, though, so Roy Mustang hoped the less-than lucid half of her mind would make up for what the alcohol couldn't cloud.
"Did you murder Lieutenant Colonel, now Major Colonel, Maes Hughes?" His voice was firm, and he hoped she understood his question over the din of the bar.
"Hahahihihi nah. Funny, you are. I tried -hic- to... uratować… 'im, tho. Kurde, co to słowo, uh... save? Save 'im. Maes był dobry." Some of those words he didn't understand, and he didn't have the patience at the moment to tell her to repeat herself- he was the one who topped off each of her drinks, after all.
She mumbled some more to herself, all in that harsh undecipherable way, and he wondered if she was speaking in another language altogether. It didn't sound like Xingese or Cretan, the two most common foreign languages in Amestris (even though they were such a small minority it was laughable), it had too little vowels and had too clipped of a sound to it to be Cretan, but the individual words seemed to be longer than the two syllable words of the Xingese.
In all honesty, he didn't care. He hadn't truly believed Gaia Maurer to be Maes' murderer- she sounded so desperate and emotional over the phone that his suspicions were little more than paranoia and his usual thoroughness shining through his despair.
And yes, he did despair. He may have hidden it well from his subordinates, but he knew only pain for the weeks following the startling news. Maurer would be called in in the next few days for a witness's statement on the murder, but he had needed to know before he had to wait weeks, if ever, to read her transcript.
"Alright, Maurer. Can you answer me this- what were you doing when you came across Maes Hughes' body?" His tone was cold, tired. He hoped the icy tone didn't wake her up from the drunken stupor she was in, because he was much too exhausted to check his tone of voice.
He felt slightly sick at that admission, because, as Maurer had stated herself, he had gotten a nineteen year old drunk to question her in an inebriated state.
That was wrong even for him, and he knew then that he'd need to make this quick before he lost his courage.
He was going to hell either way, why not add on to his growing list of sins?
"He called -hic- Gracy, told 'er he was gunna be... late... I, ugh, I... um went to? To HQ to give 'im his dinner. An- and I heard a gun- gunshot and oh o Boże it was –" Her eyes were clearing, and god how was that fucking possible, what kind of monster was this woman that it only took this long before she was sober?
Ah, no, he soon found out that what he had mistaken for her sobering up was her beginning to cry. And dammit if he was weak for one thing, it was crying women. It wasn't that he didn't know what to do in the event of one beginning to get emotional – all they usually needed was a literal shoulder to cry on and some empty words of comfort – but it was that he always felt a sense of obligation to make sure they would be okay that really got to him. Usually, he would pride himself on his seemingly inbred sense of gentlemanly chivalry, but right now he needed none of it.
Roy Mustang, guiltily, wondered if he still had time to high-tail it out of here.
A sob shook leather-clad shoulders.
He was done for.
Roy stood up, carefully slid around the table, and pulled the woman up onto her feet, where he held her shoulders as she regained her balance.
Another sob came out of her mouth, and Roy pulled her left arm over his shoulders. He was, once again, struck at her height. He only knew one other woman of her stature (if not taller) and was hard-pressed not to shudder at the comparison. If she was related to the Armstrongs, he knew he was even more screwed than he was slowly realizing now.
Surreptitiously, he checked her hair for any sign of the patent curl that would seal his fate, and sighed in relief when her mane of hair exposed no genetic resemblance to his long-standing rival.
In the end, as they (he) walked down the darkened streets in the early June weather, her height was a boon. At some point, they had found a park bench upon which the two rested, Roy rubbing his sore shoulders, (half-dragging and half-carrying a nearly unconscious woman equal to you in height was not an easy job, alright?) and Maurer with her head between her legs. He vaguely considered that that was probably not the best way to sit in her state, but didn't voice his thoughts as he watched her dry-heave and sob, both in equal abandon.
"I- I, he was gud man. A very -hic- good man. Why did he die?! Why?! Why didn' I save him?!"
He blames his own tipsiness and tired mind for reaching out to lay a comforting hand on her back.
Damn her tears. Damn the cloudiness in his own gaze.
He swore it was just the rain.