I realize I've made a few canonical errors in this story (the battle at the Mion River happens at night and not in the morning, Rin and Aoi aren't supposed to be living with Tokiomi at this time) so please forgive me for these.

"Archer?"

I lurched on the sofa, spewing a mouthful of wine across the parlor. Sitting up, I twisted back and craned my head back to see Tokiomi standing behind me, a disturbed expression on his face. His gaze roamed over the eight or so empty bottles lying around. "What?" I snapped. "I don't like people sneaking up on me."

"I don't believe I gave you permission to access my wine cabinet," he said in a slightly dazed voice.

"You didn't," I reminded him and sank back down to a lying position. Fingering a wine glass, I arranged my left arm behind my head and fell to cursing Tokiomi under my breath, more out of habit than anger. Night lurked at the windows. A few hours ago, or so I assumed, Tokiomi's little family had gone off to bed, leaving me to drink in peace – in peace, that is, until Tokiomi himself felt the urge to burst in on me. I found him unbearably, insufferably unamusing.

"Archer, I'm your Master, remember? You're my Servant – Servants don't mouth off to their Masters."

I snorted. "Maybe mongrel Servants don't."

"For heaven's sake, stop calling everyone mongrels. You're a Servant whether you like it or not and it's your duty to help me win the Holy Grail."

"Holy Grail, what's that? A shiny trinket that belongs to me anyway. I don't see why I should be helping anyone, least of all you, take what's mine."

Tokiomi crossed the room and sat down on a sofa across from me. "I don't believe for a minute all that nonsense about you owning everything. All I want from the Grail is a wish. One wish, and then we won't have to put up with each other any longer. And take your shoes off my sofa."

I slowly let my feet drop down from the arm of the sofa. I sat up, flicking my hair out of my eyes, and after emptying the glass in one gulp set about refilling it from another bottle on the coffee table. Tokiomi eyed the bottle. "Don't you think you've had enough?"

I rolled my eyes. "That's for me to decide."

He groaned and let his head fall back against the sofa. "Why did I have to get stuck with the Servant with an alcohol problem?"

"What do you mean, the Servant with an alcohol problem?" I demanded.

The look on his face would freeze the insides of any mongrel. He gestured to the slew of empty bottles on the floor with his eyes. "That's what I would call a very large alcohol problem."

I treated him to a mirthless laugh and stretched out again on the sofa, deliberately placing my feet on the arm again. "Insects like you have alcohol problems. I've never been drunk a day in my life."

"Archer, you are either always drunk or always sober. I just haven't figured out which yet."

"And you, Tokiomi, are either mad or insane. But I think I've figured that one out."

"Oh?"

"Yes. You're both."

His lower eyelid twitched. "I know now. You're always drunk."

"How dare you!?" I flashed upright and flung the glass to the floor, where it shattered. Red spots stained the expensive-looking rug. "You dare speak to a king that way!? You aren't even worthy of death by the Gate of Babylon for such disrespect!"

He placed a hand over his eyes.

"Look at me when I address you, mongrel!"

A high, piercing voice rang out from upstairs. "Daddy, I'm trying to sleep! Make him be quiet!"

We both sat looking up at the ceiling. "MONGRELS!" I yelled at last. "All of you!"

Tokiomi looked like he wanted to put a bullet through his head. "Be quiet before you irritate my daughter any more. You won't like her when she's angry."

I bounded over to him and thrust my face into his. "MINE IS THE ONLY ANGER YOU SHOULD FEAR, TOHSAKA!"

His face went white. Good. He finally got it.

Then he gagged, right in my face. He placed his hands on my shoulders and pushed me away from him. "Archer, I swear, there is enough alcohol on your breath right now to kill a dragon. One of these days you are going to regret drinking so much. Take my word for it."

"You fool, I already told you I've never been drunk before. I simply can't get drunk. So I'll drink as much as I please, whatever you presume to say."

"There are other unpleasant side effects to drinking anything too much."

"Then you will not deny me the use of your facilities." I turned, started to walk away from him. Pausing at the coffee table, I picked up the bottle and glanced at it. It still held a couple inches of wine, and since I didn't feel like going all the way to the kitchen to get another glass, I drank it straight from the bottle. No sense in letting it go to waste – by 'going to waste' I meant someone other than me drinking it.

Tokiomi made some disgusted noise and quit the parlor. I glared at his departing figure and then at empty space. "Regret drinking so much, indeed. Who does he think he is? Anu?" I tossed the empty bottle onto the sofa, stretched my arms over my head, and wandered off to bed. So much for 'alcohol problem'. I'd never felt better.

I'd never felt worse. From downstairs I dully heard a grandfather clock boom eleven. It hurt to listen. Ugly sunlight trickled through the windows. My head pounded, my stomach churned, and a horrible nausea took hold of me. My tongue felt covered in fur, limbs boneless, throat inflamed. "Great Uruk, am I dying?" The thought sent electrical charges of panic zipping all throughout my anguished body. I lay like a wet piece of string, tangled in the sheets. My head caused me so much agony I wished I could just cut it off and put an end to the torment.

Someone knocked on the door. I threw a pillow at it. When that didn't make much noise, I threw my shoe. "Go away!" I shrieked.

"Archer, Daddy says there's something strange going on at the Mion River. You need to get up! You already missed breakfast."

Curse that little Tohsaka girl. "I'm not getting up," I said with my face pressed against the mattress.

"But Daddy needs you!"

"And I need some aspirin. And a bucket."

"Archer?"

I couldn't wait for the bucket. I heaved my chin over the edge of the bed and emptied my stomach onto the floor.

"I'm going to get Daddy," said the door, and little footsteps went scampering away.

No. Don't get him. I didn't want anyone to witness my dying moments.

In a few minutes the door slammed open, and Tokiomi, looking like he had never gone to bed, stood in the doorway with a dark look on his face. His daughter Rin, with two ponytails almost as long as she was tall, peered around his leg at me. Nothing on earth would tear her eyes from me.

Tokiomi did not fail to notice the mess on the floor. I glared at him with bloodshot eyes, but I couldn't focus on him. The floor seemed to tilt as he walked over to me. "Archer, what on earth is the matter with you?"

"I've spent too long in this place," I snarled. "It's getting to me. This era stinks."

"So does this room," Rin said. Oh, how I wished she would leave.

Tokiomi blinked at me, then launched into laughter – low and contained, but laughter all the same. I was livid.

"Gilgamesh," he said in a booming voice, "you have just found out the unpleasant side effects of your very large alcohol problem."

"You wretch! How dare you address me by my proper name!?" My rant died off into a groan. "Go away and let me suffer in peace."

Now Rin started giggling. Tokiomi looked happier than I'd ever seen him. "You have a hangover, that's what's wrong with you. A hangover worthy of a king like you."

"Hangover," I repeated vaguely. Only mongrels got hangovers. I'd seen countless people get them. But me? Gilgamesh? King of Heroes? This Holy Grail War was becoming less and less worth it.

"I don't know why so much time passed before you got your first hangover, but it seems being a kingly Heroic Spirit intensifies the effects. Of course, no one but a kingly Heroic Spirit would be able to consume a dozen bottles of strong wine in one evening and still be alive to have a hangover."

The way he talked, he made being a kingly Heroic Spirit sound like an insult. If I could, I would have throttled him.

"At any rate, you're of absolutely no use until it passes, so you might as well stay in bed. By the Grail, this is ill-timed. Why couldn't you have listened to me before you went pouring several gallons of wine into yourself?"

"I don't have to listen to you, mongrel!" My pride now hurt worse than my head.

"Well, you could have saved yourself a lot of pain if you had. I'll send a maid to clean up the floor." Tokiomi stood up and left.

Rin snorted in her giggles. "And you thought you were going to die!"

I forced myself to focus on her. "I know someone who is definitely going to die if you don't shut up."

"You don't scare me." She took a few steps into the room. Walking over to a table, she picked up my earrings, which were lying on it. "Oo, these are heavy."

"Put those down!" I shrieked.

Ignoring me, she held them up to her ears and jangled them around. My fingernails sank into the mattress. I wanted desperately to send Enkidu winding about her little ankles and dragging her out of the room, but apparently my hangover had neutralized all my Noble Phantasms.

"Rin!" Aoi's voice bounded up to us. "Where are you!? You're late for school! It's past eleven! You should have been down here hours ago!"

For the first time, I blessed that woman as Rin put my earrings down with a scowl and trudged out of the room.

What I really, really needed was a drink.