Complete, finito, done. Somewhere 'round about 3,000, I think.
So, Roy Walks Into A Bar: Animeverse AU, sometime in the 30's episode-wise. Because Roy and Greed should've met, damnit. It would've been so awesome.
So Roy walks into a bar, and it's a dirty, shoddy bar on the wrong side of the tracks that cut Dublith in neat halves, have and have-not. It's got a mouthful of a name, this Devil's Nest, and it stinks of stale beer and damp cigarettes.
Greed walks into his bar, and life is good, it's a good damned morning, it is his morning, right now, today. He's got his very own guard-dog and pet snake and tame ox and tame alchemist, isn't that a lark--
He takes one look, he pokes one eye and most of his nose and the tips of his hair through the doorway, and freezes in place.
That is not his alchemist in the long mirror above the bar. That is not one of his soldiers, and not one of the rank-and-file blue shirts whose pockets he shoves payments and phone numbers into at regular intervals.
This one has little brassy pins on his collar--an officer. It is still Greed's morning, but it is not a good morning anymore.
No, Sir.
There's a tiny noise from behind and beside the bar--the creak of wood; someone trying to be stealthy and doing a good enough job, but nothing is quieter than the desert he spent years trying to escape, and none of its people were able to kill him--and a shadowy blur that Mustang swears was someone peeking in and running.
"Hello?"
The blur freezes solid and then appears all-at-once, like a jungle cat or an especially large jack-in-the-box, an entire man out of nowhere, sunglasses fixed in place as though growing there.
"Hey," says Greed. He can read this one; confusion but no surprise, and interest too keen for his liking. Greed puts on his friendly face and his friendly, oily tone of voice, the voice he dangles bait with. "Can I help you?"
Greed does not raise an eyebrow, he does not add "Stranger," because this one does not look The Type; fellow's getting laid enough, judging by the easy way he sits.
This officer blinks deep coal eyes at him and says, "Coffee," and puts change on the bar with his hand, his gloved hand, and on that white glove there is an array.
Greed's lower lip pulls back in a tense line; his right hand, the safe hand, flashes out and snaps up the coins. The money makes him grin; he likes money, everybody likes money, and so does this officer, he's willing to bet.
"Sure thing." There are clean-enough mugs down under the counter, so Greed dives for cover there, whistling jauntily and clenching his left hand--suddenly taloned--until there's blood, to keep it from rattling against the cups as he slowly breathes out.
That alchemist is not his and is, what's the new term for it, "packing heat"? He has no idea what that array is for, but no good can possibly come of this. It's some small slice of luck that he was the first one up, that his alchemist has skulked off to wherever it is his alchemist goes when he's too proud and too sore to put up with it any longer, to go find him some more information on those Elric brats.
He doesn't need those two--he has his alchemist--but he wants them around. Humans age and die. His alchemist, his Crimson, will be his even in death, but more is always good, more is always better, more is always best.
Except right now.
He scrounges up the cleanest mug and digs around for the hot-pot--marvelous invention, this; it doesn't need a stove and it plugs into the wall--Dorochet showed him how--and by the time he reappears, the alchemist who is not his has produced a newspaper from his coat pocket and is skimming over it.
Greed's content to leave the man to his own thoughts--hell, the less that alchemist pays attention to him, the better this will go--
"Hot enough day," says the alchemist.
"Sure is." The words are out of Greed's mouth before he can bite his tongue to stop them. He fidgets the coffee grounds into the paper funnel; last he'd had coffee, it came in cloth strainers, the same as tea. He furls it up and jams it down the top of the caraffe; there's supposed to be something else, a little copper basket and nonsense, and humans always make everything so stupidly complicated. The bags worked just fine.
The alchemist rattles his newspaper and turns it gingerly--he doesn't want to smudge his gloves--and Greed blinks. They print those in color, now, just the fronts, the headlines, and there's one about Pride and his soldiers. He's sure that's Pride. Pride is always a man and always with a similar sort of look, hard-jawed and cold.
"You want room?" It's like a poltergeist, Greed's want, merciless and unpredictable, driving inanities out between his teeth.
"I'm sorry?" says this officer, and his face is like a glacier or a tombstone.
"Nah, nah." Greed stuffs his left hand in his pocket, waving the other one like he can deflect this alchemist's impression of him, which is mostly right, anyway. "In your coffee, sir"--he almost said "sirrah", and damn Pride for wrapping them in such elegant uniforms, it makes him itch to take them down a peg--"for cream."
If he could just stop purring, it might work, but he can't; this one's handsome. This one's handsome, all dressed up and just old enough. And an alchemist. So he's not an Elric. No big deal.
His Crimson would sulk for weeks. That's almost worth it right there, all by itself.
"Sugar," says the alchemist, "if you have it."
The man's tone is wry. That, he can live with. So many of them start that way.
Greed does not lick his lips. He is not nervous. He smiles. "Right, sure thing."
The other words do not escape, he does not ask how much sugar this man wants, mindful of his steely expression and those arrays. He pokes at the corner cabinet where he saw Kimbley stash it before and scoops a few of the cubes onto the greatest miracle in his entire bar--a clean saucer--and brings it forward, semi-acceptable spoon in tow.
This is taking forever. He has to do everything with his back half-turned, watching the mirror, working with one hand, and that hand not his dominant one. It's like trying to tango backwards.
It's taking forever, and he thinks maybe that alchemist can tell, and if he gets out of this without too much trouble, maybe he'll give Kimbley a raise. Just a small one. He knew the new military presence in town was a hassle, but he hadn't realized how uncomfortable they could make things.
One, two, three cubes into the mug until there's a sharp nod from the alchemist: stop. So he does.
"What brings you here, sir?" There. Cat, out of bag. His curiosity demands satisfaction. He puts on his very best 'you can tell me' face, leaning affably as he stirs the coffee into the sugar. "Secret State business--hush-hush?"
He's always done it this way, never the other way. His way makes every bit of sweetness go liquid and golden in the bottom of the cup, whisked to perfection, and sometimes it gets him compliments. They usually warm up to his act after a while.
The alchemist's face goes from cold, clear assessment to a clean blank.
"You talk a lot," says the alchemist, tucking the now-folded paper back in his coat, and there's easy, light humor in his words, but nothing at all on his face. There's nothing there for Greed to go by. "Your boss around?"
"Maybe," Greed lies, nettled. His boss. That's not cool. Not at all.
It was the sort of situation Roy had to see for himself. The reports more or less match--Breda's and Falman's both--with Feury's monitoring of the outgoing line.
It's been happening for months. This place eats enlisted. PFC's in particular. As it's structured now, the Fuhrer's army is broken. Those on the bottom suffer most and die soonest. He saw ample evidence of that at the front.
At the same time, starvation is hardly sufficient excuse. Avarice is too poor a motivation to rouse effective change. He isn't angry; he isn't surprised. He knows better than anyone who wasn't there, any of the untouched, that people are corruptible.
He would never accept a bribe. Too messy. He gave up control only once, in the name of duty, and he will never let anyone take it again. Not for love or money. He sees only one thing of value when he looks in the mirror: the person his subordinates depend on.
Roy Mustang cannot and will not forgive anyone who spits on loyalty.
As rat-holes go, this Devil's Nest is textbook sleaze. There are three exits: two in the back, and the usual bolt-hole under the floor. The safe on the rear wall is doubtless where the problem is coming from, these men that vanish in twos and threes, these fellows with a problem following orders and the most terrible trouble staying equipped.
When munitions began to disappear, he'd ordered the trace. And in the weeks since, these cut-throats haven't been shy. They're after guns, mostly, small arms and powder and a little dynamite. They either don't know the State is watching and listening, or they don't care.
In either case, they don't deserve his respect. But if it's true--and he has no reason to doubt Kain's accuracy or Heyman's sincerity--if there is a State Alchemist on the payroll here, and if it is who it appears to be--he would never voluntarily place them in that kind of danger when he could go himself.
He watches the steam curling up from his ironclad, overboiled coffee and is suddenly assaulted by the smell of death, a hot rush of ashes and grease and blood, stabbing into the roots of his brain.
It passes. The mug stays upright. His smirk doesn't falter. He takes a sip; it's like turpentine and motor oil, gritty with too much sugar, and it anchors him to the room, to the bar. He blinks away cinders that aren't there and focuses on the face in front of him.
Too much nose, too much chin, too many teeth--he's a hyena walking upright, feral and grinning--a gentleman scavenger.
"Your boss around?"
The words have the right effect: the fellow coils in on himself, eyes slitted behind dark lenses, that constant smile pressing thin.
"Maybe."
His teeth are pointed. Mustang stirs his coffee--the engine cleaner pretending to be his coffee--and doesn't blink.
"Really." He leans on the word, fishes out one of the cigarettes Havoc pushed on him earlier this morning. "And would he know who I've got to kill around here to get a light?"
"Please," the fellow says, and it's barbed and indecent, "allow me."
The match appears from nowhere--leather pants cut that tight cannot possibly have pockets--and flares to life; he struck it on his hand.
Roy knows not to inhale, to wait and breathe out slowly, so it looks as if he's actually using it. It's always good to have a started ignition within reach.
"What should I tell the boss?" The man's gaze has gone hard and assessing, his humor sharp. "You know, when I see him."
Roy sets his coffee down, slides it to one side.
"Let's just say--" he leans forward, smoke haloing around his face, "that your boss has the attention of mine."
"Oh?" The question sighs out of him; he's gone pale. "Now that is interesting. And what--" he steadies himself with a little shake, "I mean, you're a fine, upstanding fellow, sir..." Mustang's name-plate is absent. The crook only misses a beat or two. "...Well, what name should I give him?" He's practically licking his lips. "He might want to see you later."
Roy can feel his blood pressure soaring. He presses a hand to his forehead, smoothing out the tension, fingers pinched on the bridge of his nose.
"I have other business to finish today, Mr. Greed."
There's an instant of brittle silence, and then Greed laughs. The sound is hoarse, half a gasp.
"I love a man with guts," he says, slapping his left hand down on the bar. The tattoo writhes; his skin is ashen. "So, let's cut to the chase. You know what I want." His tongue bleeds where he's bitten it, leering. "What do you want?"
Roy knows that insignia, knows what it means, what Greed is. It erases the last of his hesitation.
"The Philosopher's Stone." The words are cool and even. If Roy were flustered every time a man hit on him, he'd never be able to set foot outside his house, let alone go to work.
Greed shakes his head.
"Nah," it's a bark, "No way. That's what Fullmetal wants." He leans forward. The wood squeals under him. "You can't lie, not to me. Not about this."
"Fine." Roy inclines his head, eyes lowered, and gives up his very best smirking grin. "I want..."
Greed sucks in a breath, pulling down secondhand smoke, tense with hunger. "Yeah? Go on."
"To put you out of business," Roy finishes, in that sweet voice he uses on impressionable shopgirls and older women who should know better.
That smile is finally gone, thunderstruck disbelief in its place.
"Well," Greed says, and it's all he can say for a moment. "Well, well." There's a flare of blue light, a sharp cold hissing sound, and he's gone slate-dark and solid from waistline to fingertips--an alchemical reaction, one he seems half-aware of at best. He smirks, shrugs.
His hand is cold, hard and unyielding. His claws pinch through Roy's coat and into his uniform. He'd always thought 'iron grip' was a trite phrase employed by dime novelists. He can feel that any attempt to dislodge Greed's hand would break his own arm.
"Please," Greed purrs, dragging Roy forward until their shoulders touch. "You're not the first to try."
Roy lets the cigarette fall and snaps his fingers.
Greed shrieks and recoils, glasses destroyed, his face half-molten under a thick dark cast of soot. His palms stick in place when he presses them over his eyes, groaning.
"Crimson's whereabouts," says Roy, smoothing his sleeve. "Don't make me ask again."
"Oh," says Greed, low and slow. "You've done this before." He's beaming, teeth white and whole, his skin smooth and fresh under the grime. "Wow." And he chuckles. "I think I need a smoke."
Roy grinds his teeth and tries to remember that there are human beings stashed under this roof, that he swore never to burn another civilian.
"Come on," wheedles Greed. "You started it. Got any more surprises in that coat?"
"Just one," Roy says, and out comes the official warrant, signed in a rush by the Fuhrer himself.
Greed's talons crinkle the paper; his lips twitch in time with the words as he looks them over.
"This is important," he says gravely, grinning that shit-eating grin Roy will remember and despise with his dying breath. "Very serious business."
"I'm prepared to offer you an exchange," says Roy, shocked at himself, at the words leaving his mouth. They're ridiculous, couched in the high-flown language of alchemy, and there's no way this can work.
But Greed's staring at him, fingers clenched, braced on the edge of trembling.
"A bargain?" he croons. "You want to make a deal with me?" And he shivers like an opium fiend.
"Perfectly equivalent," says Roy. "Crimson for the Elrics."
"Say." It's a low whistle. "Do your little prodigies know about this exchange? Do they have any idea?"
Roy leans with his thumbs in the belt loops of his long blue coat. He's known around town as a bit of a cad--a charming, polite, considerate cad, but still a cad--and he could act the part in his sleep. With killers parading through the city like they own it, stalking his men, he could offer Greed his soul and smile about it.
He'd never go through with it, but the offer has to look sincere. "Does it matter?"
He doesn't flinch when Greed laughs.
"No." He scrubs at his face with the palms of his hands. "All the same, I'm not interested."
"You're making this harder than it needs to be, Mr. Greed," says Roy, keeping the relief out of his voice with the perfection of long practice.
"Listen," says Greed, now employing a bar mop in his futile struggle to get clean. "He's mine. I don't like it when people tromp their shiny boots into my bar and threaten what's mine."
"Me, then," says Roy, though he knows what the answer will be, "for Crimson."
"Hell, no." Greed breathes out, the towel abandoned, shoving the warrant at Roy. "Don't offer me something I could take from you. That's no bargain at all." He's whining like a spoiled child, hands waving. "No way, no deal. Get lost."
"Mr. Greed," Roy says, smoothing the warrant on his pants leg.
"No," says Greed, "Officer Gorgeous, keep your writ." He fishes under the counter, stretching sideways like an eel, and produces a fistful of sen: Roy's, for the coffee, and several thousand more. "Keep that, keep these, and keep what you know about me locked up tight in that beautiful skull of yours, and nobody has to die."
It's Roy's turn to smile. The sen clatter through his hands to the bar, most of them rolling away. "Is that a threat?"
Greed scruffs a hand through his spiny hair, clutching tight as he tracks exactly where the money fell. "We're just negotiating."
Roy rubs his chin thoughtfully as he surveys the rows of bottles crammed to the ceiling behind Greed.
"You have a license for all that, of course," he says, "and for the powder kegs under your feet, too, unless I miss my guess."
Greed blinks, manages a tiny shrug. "I'm a businessman."
"You're a thug," says Roy, without inflection.
Greed makes a low, animal sound, teeth bared. "Thank you."
He can't do more than stand there, shaking with the urge to change, to plate up and dive across the counter at this beautiful uniformed disaster. He can't think straight.
Dorochet usually stashes his smokes behind the vermouth. Greed clutches them with fingers that won't stay still, whips one out of the package so fast it trails tobacco at one end.
He can't make himself touch the matches.
Greed spits the cigarette out with a grimace. He's had just about enough of playing with fire.
Roy shakes his head, smiling amiably as if nothing just happened.
"I don't make deals with thugs," he says, wiping his gloves on his trouser legs, watching Greed over his shoulder all the way to the door. "You have seven days."
-END-
Spot the mangaverse reference? ^_~