I put together a prompt list for October - Cowboytober!
Doesn’t have to be ink, you can do it in whichever medium you choose. Just tag your contribution as #cowboytober2020 so we can see it! This is running on both twitter and tumblr so you can join in regardless of which social media you use. Hashtags are the same on both.
A Royai Cowboy/Western AU inspired by @5hio and written as a part of @wastelandwolff’s Cowboytober 2020.
She’s the sharpest shooter across the whole frontier, and he starts bar fights for fun.
Roy Mustang props up the bar like he’s a permanent staple. At this point, he might as well be. He’s spending money he cannot afford to all in the pursuit of futile pleasure and, well, being blind drunk is about all the fun a disgraced ex-sheriff can have.
He’s been in this town for a little while now, he’s not sure just how long but his position at the bar is a well-worn groove, the knot in the mahogany bar-top his familiar propping post.
He frowns when a sudden, un-characteristic silence befalls the saloon. Blinking a few times to regain some semblance of concentration, he throws a scant glance in the direction of the woman who has caused such a stir.
Nearby, Roy can’t help but overhear the muttered musings of two fellow drunkards; “Hawk in name and hawk by nature, she’s the deadliest sharpshooter there is. A real deadeye.”
Looking at her, Roy never would have guessed. He supposes there is a severeness about her, an intensity in her amber eyes, but there’s a softness in her face too and a gentleness in the curve of her jaw.
He realises he’s staring.
Turning back to the neck of his bottle, he swallows a hefty mouthful. The moonshine always hits his stomach like a freight-train, but that’s just how he likes it. It helps him to forget who he is and feel something besides the shame he shoulders each day.
Roy hasn’t shaven in days and hasn’t washed in even longer. There’s no way someone like her would ever pay him a second glance. He smells of booze, and reeks of disappointment; he’s not even sure that his aunt would look him in the eyes at this point. And even if she did, he’s not sure that she’d like what she’d see in them.
As the woman moves through the saloon, settling on a bar stool just a few feet away from him, Roy notes the way the room once again fills with the sound of casual conversations and the dulcet tones of a poorly tuned piano.
Stroking a hand down his face, the four-day stubble scratches at his palm whilst he shakes the bottle in his free hand.
Almost empty.
Sighing, he takes his final mouthful, eyes once again on her. So engrossed, the man hardly notices when his bottle runs dry.
But it does run dry.
In what is a familiar motion, Roy reaches into his pocket fumbling around for the necessary coin to fuel his next round, but he stops when his fingers don’t brush anything cool.
His eyes grow wide.
“Shit.”
Roy is faced with two choices; accept defeat and embrace sobriety, and its associated hangover, or find some way to keep drinking. He knows which choice he should choose, but he also knows which choice he wants to follow.
And the barman’s back is turned.
Craning his neck over the bar, Roy slots his mouth beneath one of the pumps, his hand clumsily reaching for the tap and tugging on it. He sighs, relieved, as ale gushes into his mouth, and it’s the closest thing to ecstasy he’s experienced in a very long time.
But like all other joys in Roy’s life as of late, it’s short-lived.
Roy’s stupor is rudely interrupted by a pair of large hands that grab him roughly by his collar. He swallows, looking up at the barkeep with doe-eyes. He’s reminded of all the times his aunt had scorned him for swiping dessert prematurely, and how he’d used these same innocent eyes to wrangle himself out of trouble every time.
Except, on this occasion, it doesn’t seem to work.
Roy swallows more thickly this time, forced bravado on his face, “Hey, I’ve spent days keeping this place in business, and I don’t even get one free drink? Talk about poor hospitality.”
Big mistake.
The barkeep’s face flushes a furious red, his jaw clenched and his hold on Roy’s collar intensifying.
“All you’ve done is stink up my damn bar for the past week, and now you’re stealing from me?”
Roy relents, immediately on the backfoot, “Look, I’m just a little low on funds right now. I’ll get the cash and –”
Ouch.
Roy’s hands dart upwards towards his face, cradling his nose that has just been fiercely sucker-punched.
There’s blood on his hands.
Quickly, the same blood that flows through Roy’s veins beings to boil, his quick temper sparking instantaneously into a raging inferno. He surges upwards, crashing the upper side of his forehead against the underside of the barman’s jaw.
The man’s hold on him releases, and Roy wipes his nose with the cuff of his jacket, something like a real smile on his face.
“Damn, that feels good!” He declares brazenly, arms open and ready for his next attack, “Show me what you’ve really got you hulking oaf.”
But it isn’t just the barkeep this time.
There’s three men, all significantly taller than him, all with rage written across their features and they’re all skulking towards him.
Roy responds confidently, raising his hands and a wry smile plays at his bloodied lips, “Alright, gents, I’m sure we can talk about this.”
Cockily, he swings for the shortest of the men, but his fist is caught midway through its trajectory before it can make any bone-shattering contact. Colour draining from his face, Roy finds himself backed against a corner with the eyes of the whole saloon on him.
Caught by his throat, and hoisted with his back against the wall, he lashes out with his feet, desperately trying to make contact with one of the men and send them reeling, hopefully with their hands clutching the space between their legs.
He’d stand a chance of landing a blow sober, but the cards are stacked against him whilst drunk.
A wheeze is forced from his lungs as one of the lackeys lays into his stomach, knocking the wind from him.
The grip on his throat tightens.
He can’t breathe.
All bravado gone, he scrambles desperately to try and pull the hands from around his throat, but his vision is closing in, and there’s an eerie screaming in his ears. It’s a ringing so loud that he doesn’t register the shot for a few seconds but when he does, it’s a shot that snaps him quickly into sobriety.
Spluttering, Roy drags in a deep breath, coughing on the exhale as he sinks to the floor, slumping against the wall as he cradles his throat. He lifts his eyes, noting that one of the oafs has a bullet hole-shaped chunk missing from one ear, and they’re wailing about it like a child.
It brings a sly smile to Roy’s face.
Glancing around, he seeks out the figure of his saviour. Eyes travelling up the lines of their legs, the curve of their waist and, up past their chest, he meets those honey-brown eyes; the ones that had first caught his attention when she’d stepped into the bar.
It’s her. The Deadeye.
And she’s offering him her hand.
He takes it without a second thought, and she hauls him to his feet in one smooth motion.
He smiles at her, but she’s already turned to the barkeep, her pistol once again holstered in the belt at her hip, “I’d say his tab is settled, wouldn’t you agree?”
The man simply nods, cradling his still-bleeding ear.
Roy watches as she turns to leave, unsure if the instruction is to follow her or simply make himself very scarce very quickly.
Either way, he isn’t about to hang around for half a second longer.
He follows close behind on her heels, trousers all but brushing the spikes of her spurs as she walks.
“Thank you,” Roy says, the words spilling awkwardly out of his mouth. He’s unsure how someone like her will react. She’s dangerous but she’s also the first person to show him kindness in months. And, for that reason, Roy isn’t willing to lose sight of her so easily.
She replies with a cursory glance over her shoulder and a simple shrug, “Couldn’t exactly just sit there and watch them beat you to a bloody pulp. Would’ve really put a dampener on my own drink.”
Roy chuckles.
“Even so,” he begins, “I’m just not sure why you’d step in to help someone like me.”
She says nothing.
And Roy decides it’s best to not press her about it any further.
They walk the rest of the way to the hitching post in silence. By her steed’s side sits a black and white mutt with a pink tongue which wags loosely out of the side of its mouth upon first sight of its mistress returning. The dog starts leaping up at her.
“Sit, Hayate,” the woman instructs coolly, before stooping to reward the dog with a scratch behind its ear.
Roy can’t help but smile at the scene.
“Nice dog,” he says conversationally with an easy smile.
The woman smiles at that and does something that Roy doesn’t quite expect.
She offers him her hand again.
“They call me a deadeye with a gun,” she explains. “But I prefer Riza. Riza Hawkeye.”
