run, i'm a natural disaster

18. Red

Roy Mustang is sitting in a bar across from Madame Christmas', nursing a pint of ale and cursing various things. He wears an eye patch now. They should've known that the Truth's toll was never easy to fix, even with a Philosopher's stone. Ed still lost her arm again, didn't she? Now he has one perfect eye, one blind eye, and a slight talent for clap alchemy. It's not to the extent Ed, Al or Izumi have- they can clap and activate any array that they can visualise, he can only do one or two- he hypothesises it's because it was not his circle, and he didn't pay most of the toll for his knowledge; therefore so he can only use it for his signature alchemy and basic arrays, rendering it pretty damn useless (especially on rainy days, like today is).

There's a poker tournament going on. One of the winners, quitting whilst they are a head, saunters over to his table. A red cloak covers the face and body, only revealing the glimpse of elegant black gloves, a hint of an attractive body shape and a painted face, made up like she is one of the sex symbols in the magazines that are so popular with young men.

Without waiting for an invitation, she sits, a wine glass filled with a strange red liquid (not alcohol, he would smell it, but no berry from Amestris either.)

"Rhubarb and cranberry." She says, and gives a small smile.
"Urgh?" Roy answers eloquently.
"My drink. Rhubarb and cranberry juice. You looked interested." He can see the barest hint of an eyebrow move, and the smile on her face that's almost mocking, treating him like a child. "So why are you, an important military man, in a place as seedy as this?"

Roy doesn't know how she knows him, and at this point he's had too many to care, and answers the personal question: "In the process of coping. An injury. It could well set back my career and goals, and render me useless as a player."

The woman snorts delicately. "An eye patch? You have one good eye, sir. With all due respect, that's not the end of the world. You can easily teach yourself to cope. It will simply take time and effort. Simply put, are you a man or are you an idiot?"

Roy gulps like a fish, before sighing and knocking back his drink. The red woman smiles, and gulps down her drink.

They sit in companionable silence for a few more drinks, before the cloaked woman starts making clever observations about politics and Amestris' history at him, with him thinking that he should really be writing this down, it could be useful in future speeches and games; before she gets up.

"Sorry, Mustang. Got to cut and run-they'll be missing me you know. Look after yourself, Bastard!" And with that, she turns and leaves, quicker than he would have expected someone in a dress like that to be able to move.

He wants to ask who she is- and just how she knows him- but he catches sight of a golden haired woman in a red cloak meeting a young man with long dark hair and an umbrella outside the establishment and he just knows he's been set up to get out of his self-pitying wreck. (He suspects Hawkeye, and maybe Havoc or Armstrong).

"Alright, Edward," he chuckles, raising a glass in a toast, "I'll get up and walk."

(The "for you" remains unspoken and unacknowledged.)

A.N: The last of the Mustang ones, this one prompted by people wanting Mustang hitting on Ed without knowing who she is. Well, he's not hitting on her, exactly, but he is finding her attrative- that counts, doesn't it?

Also, no idea whether rhubarb and cranberry is nice, but I guess Ed would drink it anyway, because s/he's got strange tastes in drinks (doesn't like milk, what a weirdo...)

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