The Same Coin

The Lambs Didn't Think

Time marched forward with the eagerness and resolve of a starved, beaten army.

Winry had listened attentively to the commotion in the nearby tourist district, despite all she could hear being only chaos. She mentally calculated where she was, and what was nearby. There were several hotels in close radius, including Hotel Beitacle — the hotel she had stayed at on her maiden voyage across the sea.

She'd stayed on the roof more than an hour after the balloon had left her sights, and long after she'd realized she wouldn't be able to glean any information from this distance. She also was intelligent enough to understand that leaving the house to find out more would be unwise; she was expected to be here. But as more time passed while the nighttime breeze grew stronger, and her phone remained silent, she eventually retreated indoors to pace.

It was after the two hour mark that her cellphone began to ring in her hand, and she flipped it open hastily to see who was calling. Winry blinked in surprise.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Hey, Winry! It's Shalnark!" His tone was in its usual, upbeat key. In the background she heard Uvogin bellow, "Is that the mechanic Boss brought along? She was cute," without any shame. Something about his demeanor reminded her to Captain Buccaneer, and she blushed. Shalnark didn't acknowledge what the other man had said. "I need you to go get us beer, and a lot of it."

"I can do that," she agreed.

She wanted to ask what they had done and if they'd succeeded. She wanted to know if this was how they intended to celebrate, even though she had a hard time imagining the likes of Machi, Chrollo, and Hisoka plying themselves with alcohol for any elation. She refrained though, swallowing down all her questions and settling on just one.

"Anything else?"

"That's it for now. I'll call again in a bit."

Instinct had warned her she might need to do something to change her appearance, even slightly. So she parted her hair down the middle and plaited her blonde lengths into two long tails before twisting them together to pile atop her head. A few pins tacked down her bangs. She'd brought along a bag that held a pair of thick, rectangular black glasses, and a komon. She dressed quickly, then left to find the nearest store.

Winry at last heard sirens howling in the direction the balloon had come from, and her head turned to follow their noise, wind gusting around her. A group of men had gathered outside their door nearby, and she caught pieces of their conversation.

"Mafia auction—"

"—got what they deserved for—"

"—wonder who did it..."

"Look at the tits on her."

She lowered her gaze as she walked past, but the men grew quiet as one of them leapt off the stoop, landing beside her. Her jaw locked as the man ran his fingers through his hair and smiled down at her.

"I like your glasses."

Winry bit the insides of her cheeks before forcing herself to give a curt nod. "Thank you."

"Do you want a drink?" he offered, extending a green can to her. Winry's eyes lowered to it, reading the label as the smell on his breath reached her nose.

"Are you having a party?" she asked.

He nodded. "It's his birthday," he said, gesturing to one of the men still standing on the stoop. The man in question raised his can to her. "Do you want to drink with us?"

"I wouldn't be comfortable being the only girl." Winry bit her lip and peered up from beneath her long lashes. The man beside her flushed. She pressed together the tips of her pointer fingers for good measure. "Would it be okay if I invited a few more girls?"

"If that would make you comfortable, sure."

"Do you have enough beer for all of us though?"

"How many friends did you want to invite?"

"Two of us two each one of you?" His jaw went slack, and Winry swallowed hard and held her breath to keep from laughing at his reaction. "Is that too many? I don't want to impose."

"Don't worry, sunshine," birthday boy chimed in. "We got enough beer to get a whole circus drunk."

Her experience in flirtation was limited. She'd never felt like she had to be anything other than herself when it came to the people she had an attraction for. She felt awkward and uncomfortable in her own body as she climbed the steps, too conscious of the natural sway of her hips, then laid her hand on the birthday boy's arm as she gave him what she prayed was a demure smile.

"Can I see it?"

He looked her up and down only once, wetting his lips with his tongue, before he gestured to the door. Winry let him open it for her then stood back to let him show her the way. Her eyes scanned each room they walked past, making a list of silent mental notes. The curtains were drawn and, judging from how they they didn't flutter, the windows were shut.

He led her to a small kitchen where he opened the fridge with a flourish, smiling down at her with what she could only interpret as pride. There was little in the way of food — a few takeaway containers, a half empty bottle of pop, and some things she didn't want to attempt to identify. The rest of the fridge, however, was plump with cases of beer. Certainly more than she would have bought herself if she'd made it to the store. Winry covered her mouth with a hand to hide her smile.

"Is that enough for you and all your friends?"

She took three short steps so that she stood in front of him, a breath apart from one another, and reached up to adjust the collar of his wrinkled shirt.

"It's perfect," she whispered, beaming at him before she slid her hand across his throat.

She felt his flesh part under her touch, and she sidestepped as the spray of arterial blood spurted from the wound. He grabbed at his neck as his knees went out beneath him, then he fell facedown onto the floor. One of his friends stepped into the kitchen at the noise, but Winry moved in close, reaching up to seize his head between her hands, and snapped it. She caught the heft of his corpse in her arms and lowered him to the ground.

Winry left the kitchen and found another of the men lingering in the hallway. He didn't have time to react as she walked past him, arm outstretched to drag her fingertips across the soft, vulnerable flesh of his throat. There was music playing in her head and she could feel a weight lifting from her shoulders as she reached the front door.

"Are there bandages?" she asked, wide-eyed as she showed the three men still outside her bloodstained fingers. "He said you'd know where they are."

The lambs didn't think twice to come to her rescue.

She shoved their bodies so they sat against one wall together in the entryway, then made short work of checking the rest of the house to see whether there was anyone else she should be concerned about.

When that was done, Winry cleared a space for herself on a sofa and sent both Chrollo and Shalnark a text message with the address for the house she had commandeered. She had barely hit send when her phone began to ring.

Hisoka.

"Do you trust me?"

"Hmh. No, mink. I do not."

"Why?"

"You are a onesome little thing. A wild card — difficult to predict. I have yet to decide whether that is a quality I enjoy about you. So no, I do not trust you. I likely never will. And it's best if you don't trust me in return."

She stared at his name for a prolonged minute, biting her lip and stomach uneasy, before laying her phone down on the cushion beside her until it went silent.