The funeral of Maes Hughes was last week.
Their office had been almost silent during that time. None of the usual banter, no Hawkeye Eyebrow of Death to make them return to their work. No one complained even when Havoc smoked, reaching for another cigarette before stubbing out the one already in his mouth. The bickering would have felt too normal, too light-hearted, too much like it used to be. They all went about the business of preparing for their transfer to Central with a bare minimum of communication. The Colonel's face, when he was in the office at all, was a rigid mask. After the first two days he stopped coming in completely. No one said it, but they knew he was off somewhere drinking himself into oblivion.
o~o~o
He kept himself together for the first few days in Central, beginning to investigate the murder. Back in Eastern he's lost his momentum, and now he's off in some bar, or drinking at home, eaten with grief. At least I know he isn't going to hurt himself. He's more driven than ever to reach his goal of becoming Führer, to justify the confidence Maes had in him, to find out what Maes knew that got him shot to death next to a fucking phone booth. And after that, Roy isn't going to stop at anything to get revenge. He's going to kill the person who did it, and then the people who helped to do it, and then anyone who knew it was going to happen, at any cost, and he can't do that if he's dead. So he'll get through this binge as he's gotten through so much else. Alive.
x
I came into the office after midnight. My days are so turned around, from the drinking and the passing out and the getting up to vomit and then start drinking again that I'm more awake now than I've been all day. If you consider being conscious but totally hammered awake. And anyway if I had to face any of them, the men avoiding my eyes and fucking Riza looking straight through me and reading my mind, I'd hurt someone. I want to hurt someone anyway. I punched the shit out of that fuckhead in the bar last night. And then I punched the bartender. And then I got thrown out.
But through it all I've been thinking about Maes, about his promise to support me and the look in Gracia's eyes at the funeral and that fucking inscription on the headstone that says he died in combat, when he was gunned down in a fucking phone booth by some murderer I will kill, for reasons I still can't guess. And that is why I am in the office tonight squinting at every document I can think of that might have some kind of answer, pouring whiskey into this glass and drinking it and pouring it again. Fuck it, who am I kidding, I'm drinking from the bottle now. I throw the glass against the wall. I need to hear it break. And I need to piss. And I'm taking the bottle with me.
x
I came into the office at around one in the morning. I couldn't sleep and I hate working during the day now anyway, the office dead silent. I'm so ahead on my paperwork that it's going to be even more impossible to find anything to do by the end of the week, but I won't care about that now. I need to not think, to try to drown my own grief. Maes. Roy.
I get into the dark office and am shocked to see light coming from underneath the Colonel's door. I think briefly, briefly about knocking and dismiss it as insanity. I sit down to my desk as quietly as I can, turning on my desk lamp but no other lights to keep the room dim, trying to avoid disturbing him. If he leaves his office I'll let him walk by without a word. Nothing I say can help him now. Maybe next week. At least I know he isn't going to hurt himself.
I hear glass shatter. A moment later the door opens and Roy stumbles out, backlit against the office door. He's in his shirtsleeves and a bottle is dangling from his hand. The smell of whiskey is overpowering. He takes a step forward and the light from my desk lamp illuminates his face, and even knowing how much he must have been drinking I'm shocked at his appearance. His shirt is has a stain down the front, and he can't have shaved in days. His cheeks seem hollow and his eyes are bloodshot, and the expression on his face is a cross between absolute death and murderous rage.
x
I open the door and see a light on in the office, which for some reason seems to cast a sort of hazy nimbus. I squint. Hmm. It's the lamp on Riza's desk, and fuck it, fucking Riza is sitting right there, looking at me with ruby eyes and this expression on her face that makes me want to kill her, because it's startled and kind. She's startled to see me like this? She doesn't know by now that this is the real me? I'm filled with an overpowering need to say or do anything to provoke her into anger or disgust and wipe that kindness off her face. I'm a murdering bastard and I can't stand her loyalty anymore, the years and years of it, like I'm some fucking hero. I can't stand her face looking like a fucking angel's as always, the light from the lamp illuminating the creamy skin. The fact that she appears to be glowing in some sort of soft focus doesn't help. I stumble forward to her desk, catching myself on the edge of it and hitching one hip over its side. I take a swig from the bottle and sneer at her.
"My dutiful Lieutenant." I sneer again. "We shouldn't let the world stop, should we? We should keep right on going with our fucking work with fucking dedication."
Then she says something that makes me even angrier. "Sir, you shouldn't be drinking so much." She can actually worry about my well-being when she sees me like this. She should be repulsed, she should lose all respect for me forever.
"What, you think I'm drunk? I'm not drunk. There isn't enough booze in the fucking world to get me drunk, Hawkeye."
"Sir, let me drive you home. You shouldn't be here like this."
"You're right. I shouldn't be here. Maes should be here." I stare at her face, at the line between her eyebrows puckering in concern, and the mouth with the soft lower lip just turned down into a frown rather than it's usual firm, determined set. I hate her eyes the most right now, the jewel color and the beautiful shape of them and the way they're set above her perfect cheekbones, and I want to see them shocked and horrified and I want to express my absolute contempt for her beauty, and all the years and years of devotion. I lean closer. "I could get drunk off you, though."
x
He stumbles over to my desk, banging hard into its side. He looks down on me with his face twisted into something like hatred. But he's still Roy, and I know that underneath he is raw and hurting, and that he feels that way because of the passionate, caring, good person that he is, and because of his love for the man who was his best friend. The things about him that are the greatest are torturing him now.
"My dutiful Lieutenant. We shouldn't let the world stop, should we? We should keep right on going with our fucking work with fucking dedication," he says, his words slurred.
There isn't any real reply to that. I just say what I'm actually thinking, which is that he's killing himself with alcohol.
"Sir, you shouldn't be drinking so much."
He looks, if possible, even more furious. There is a wildness in his eyes.
"What, you think I'm drunk? I'm not drunk. There isn't enough booze in the fucking world to get me drunk, Hawkeye."
This is, obviously, not an accurate statement. What a melodramatic drunk. All I can think about is getting him out of here and safely home, to sleep it off and hopefully eat something and maybe even shower.
"Sir, let me drive you home. You shouldn't be here like this."
His eyes lock onto my face, and I wonder what he's seeing there.
"You're right. I shouldn't be here. Maes should be here," he says raggedly. He pauses, and something in his face shifts.
"I could get drunk off you, though." He moves closer to me.
x
I am going to give her the most brutal kiss in the world. I am going to snatch her to me by the hair and crush her mouth with mine. I am going to force her mouth open so wide the corners of it split and do anything I fucking want to with my tongue. I am going to bite her lip until it bleeds, and then I might finish by shoving her back against her chair and tipping it over and seeing her fall on the floor with her mouth swollen and torn. And then I am going to go home and shower and shave and come into the office tomorrow looking fucking immaculate, just so I can see her face blemished for once, and listento her coolly lie all day about how she stumbled in the night and banged it on her kitchen counter, which is why she looks like someone punched her in the mouth. And then we'll see if she can still look at me with fucking respect.
I grab both of her wrists, hard, quickly switching both of them into the grip of one hand. My other moves around the back of her neck to keep her from pulling away as I pin her wrists against my chest and lean towards her.
x
I'm only halfway through my mental eye-roll when he moves so fast I don't even have time to react. I hear the bottle smash against the floor as he grabs my wrists and jerks me towards him.
x
Then my lips touch hers and suddenly I'm barely putting pressure on them. I'm softly rubbing her bottom lip with mine and sucking it a little. My hand relaxes from its grip on her wrists and moves to barely touch her cheek with my thumb. My other hand has become gentle against the nape her neck. My lips part and I'm caressing her mouth with mine. I nuzzle at it and all I can think about is slipping my tongue inside it. She hasn't moved a muscle, hasn't put out a hand for any of four guns that I'm sure are within easy reach. And then she actually starts responding to the kiss, her lips moving against mine just a little.
I keep kissing her, loving the feeling of the softness of her lips and wanting nothing more than to coax them apart. She leans towards me a little, and I can feel her body start to shake. And then her lips finally do part, and my tongue is moving against hers and hers is moving against mine and it is bliss. I'm on fire. I could do this forever. I could drink her like water. She makes the tiniest whimpering moan in her throat that makes something in my brain explode. I tilt my head a little and stroke her face with my hand. My hand moves to toy with the soft strands of hair at the nape of her slim neck, then slides down the side of her throat, where the skin is more delicate than anything I've ever felt, and I feel the pulse racing in her neck and smile a little against her mouth. I know I'd love kissing her neck, getting closer to her smell, gun oil and lavender, breathing into her ear and making her shiver, but that would mean breaking this kiss and I am never, ever going to do that because I am going to spend the rest of my life kissing her. I run my thumb along the line of her jaw and cup her face in my hands, tilting it a little further up to me, cradling all of that fantastic beauty. I feel myself inhale deeply and let out a shuddering breath.
x
The second his mouth touches mine I freeze. The painful grip on my wrists relaxes and his thumb moves to just rest on my cheekbone, the other caressing the back of my neck. He's still leaning against the side of the desk, bending over me in my chair. The combination of the suddenness of his snatch at me followed by the incredible gentleness of his kiss has thrown me off; if he had moved in slowly I would've rebuffed him immediately, if he had continued being rough he would already be on the floor in considerable pain. As it is, my mind is telling me that it's time either to reach for my gun or give him five fingers to the face, and I'm taking a moment to decide which when a very unwelcome thought declares its independence and offers the alternative of just going with the kiss. That part of my brain seems to be very good at drumming up support as most of the "reach for the gun" faction immediately defects to its side, softly whispering that a pistol-whip would really be disproportional retaliation. The voice of the "punch his lights out" lobby suddenly becomes very subdued. Then to my horror I realize the rebellion hasn't stayed confined to my brain, as my mouth has started moving on Roy's completely of its own accord. I dig my nails into the sides of my chair to at least keep my hands where they belong. Not touching Roy.
The hell with it. I lean into the kiss.
I have never felt anything like this. This is so wonderful I think I might lose my mind. I don't care that he tastes like whiskey, I don't care that he's my superior officer and is completely taking advantage of that right now. I'm trembling and my heart is beating so hard I can hear the pounding in my ears. No one has ever kissed me like this, like I'm some unbelievably precious treasure, like I'm being savored. And it's Roy, Roy, and his tongue is in my mouth and my entire body is tingling. I'm shaking against him, and as I feel his fingers rest on the pulsing artery in my throat his lips tighten in a smile. Smug bastard. Yes, I am aroused. He's cupping my face in both of his hands and kissing me a little more urgently now.
x
God damn it. I shove her away from me as hard as I can. While I still can.
x
He suddenly shoves me so hard that my chair skids across the floor and crashes into the wall behind me. My shoulder bangs into it. I'll have a bruise there tomorrow. He looks down on me with a face so expressionless it barely seems like a face anymore.
He says, "Now I'm drunk." Then he walks out the door.
After a moment I move from my desk. I need to clean up all the broken glass, and get the whiskey out of the carpet. I don't want the office smelling of it in the morning.
It would be so bad for morale.