For those of you who could care less about the other guys…this is a mostly Roy/Riza chapter. Why? Because I couldn't help myself. In defense of Roy-ai fans everywhere: If the Colonel's an ass, I'll kiss him anyway. Take that Torii :-P

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200-Proof Predicament

"Cold?"

Lieutenant Hawkeye glanced up from a large mug of tea, the steam of it drifting across her glacial features. Now that the Colonel was looking closely, he noticed the corner of a white paper tissue just visible in her left nostril.

"No," she answered.

"Flu?"

"Would I have come to work?"

"Yes."

Hawkeye paused, considering, and shrugged. "You got me there. But no…whatever Fury's been brewing today has me sick to my stomach."

Mustang twisted his face into an expression of puzzlement, for a moment, until the cogwheels in his brain started turning again. His Lieutenant was such a conundrum—you had to figure out what she was thinking almost constantly. Difficult women had never been his strength…but for some strange reason it made her all the more enticing.

Or maybe it was just the fact that they could rank on the rest of the company through nothing more than the most obscure references and nobody else understood.

"You really hate coffee, don't you?"

"Just the smell of it makes me nauseous."

Right to the point…as always. "Hence the nasal devices?"
Her hand shot up to her nose. "You can see them?"

"I used that trick constantly while the plumbing was being evacuated to get rid of that fish smell," Mustang assured her. "Hey…what happened to my calendar page?"

"You haven't been to the staffroom in a while, have you?"

"After that incident with the shaving cream I swore to steer clear."

"I never thanked you for dealing with that, by the way. Breda makes such a mess with everything, but that stuff topped the list."

"But what happened to the picture?"

She'd probably thrown it away. That was so like her, too. She wouldn't even care much for a mostly-nude photo of him.

She shrugged. "I took it home before one of the boys got disgusted enough to take it down."

Mustang stopped, having already prepared to spout some witty, accusative joke. But then, she always managed to kill those, too. Argh, my libido. "You'll help them down my ego but refuse to let that little secret of yours provide everyone some badly-yearned-for entertainment?"

"Call me the Great Equalizer."

Wasn't that what they called that new type of bomb? "A weapon?"

"Does that not make sense?"

He thought about it some more, and realized that the Lieutenant had been cleaning her guns at the table. Hell, she'd named her dog after a type of gun. But there was no way he was going to indicate how shortsighted he'd just been. "You never told me whether or not you'd like me to buy you lunch," he tried instead.

Her stony face, softened somewhat by the steam from her massive mug, closed back up again. In a mocking, singsong voice she replied, "Ooh, look at that, the Lieutenant's out for a promotion…fifty cens says she doesn't really mean it…fifty cens says they're going to his place…one hundred cens that the whole thing is just a plot to make us lose all our money—that's not really a bet!"

"Is that really why you act so cold to me all the time?"

"Yes."

He was losing this conversation, and badly. This wasn't his most pathetic attempt at trying to woo the Lieutenant (as sad as that was), but she was leaving him exactly no room for wit. And she made sense, which was the worst part.

Co-workers shouldn't date. But on the other hand…there were plenty of opportunities to break away and not be co-workers. He needed an intelligent argument. What actually came out of his mouth was: "Oh, come on, Lieutenant."

She sighed and sipped at her gigantic mug. Skeptical, she said, "Hundreds, thousands of women who would do your every bidding…and you want me."

"Well, yeah."

"Why?"

"I have to have a reason?"

"Yes!"

That was the problem with career women…they didn't want to hear the truth. Was it because he had ample opportunity to stare at her and decide that she was exactly his type? Yes. There wasn't really another good reason.

On the other hand, this was giving his brain some good exercise. If only there were other parts that could get some exercise, too.

Except he knew she wasn't nearly that easy.

A small random particle struck the 'genius' sector of his brain. "Haven't we been over this before?"

"Have we? Please, refresh me."

"I don't think you could handle your tea and me at the same time."

"I can handle more than you think," she countered. It was a joke, or as close as she ever came to them, but the double-meaning was obvious enough to both of them.

"But you can't remember why I'd want you to?"

"I'm trying to see if you do."

Mustang grinned, snatched her mug (which was actually an open-top stein) from her hands and took a big gulp. After wincing from the heat, he noticed a distinctly non-tea flavor in the brew. "Because otherwise I could write you up for taking a nip from the liquor stash on the job."

"Your stash," she pointed out, and held her hands out expectantly. "It's not nearly as spiked as the 'coffee' Fury's been making, either."

"Which I always said was a ridiculous idea. Vodka and coffee cancel each other out, especially when you really don't have a clue about fine poisons…" He took another swig, enjoying the flavor. Yes, this was definitely something from his squirrel-hole. "If it weren't for the fact that the instant crap they buy is so weak it would be, anyway."

"I kind of thought that was the point."

"Lunch?" He asked again. "That's my point. Everyone else is busy…We can sneak out. I'll take you down to the bar, if you want."

"And catch me off my guard?"

"Well, yeah."

Hawkeye stood, reclaimed her tea and proceeded to efficiently polish it off. "If it's a challenge you're after, you're on."

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Meanwhile, back in the company's shared office, Breda, Fury, Havoc and a still-tender Falman gathered to play a little poker.

"Who's got the chips?" Breda asked, pulling out a somewhat battered deck of hole-punched casino cards.

"They were in my locker," Falman answered, favoring one still-pink arm as he pulled a chair into the circle around Fury's desk. "You guys saw how badly the Colonel gutted the thing. They were a puddle of melted plastic."

"Know when your new uniforms are coming in?" Havoc asked.

"They said it was going to be at least two weeks."

The others winced.

"You know, I think the Colonel is really starting to enjoy chewing you out every day for not coming to work in uniform," Fury said, with a hint of disapproval in his voice. "It's not like it's entirely your fault, after all. Though I suppose it's a distraction from Breda—"

"Who's holding the cards, here?" Their slightly-in-need-of-a-shave dealer shuffled the deck loudly.

"Right." Falman shrugged. "He'd be royally pissed if he found out I was taking a break from all that paperwork, too…but I hear Hawkeye's been stealing from his alcohol stash and I think that might keep him distracted for a while."

"Really?" Fury sighed with relief. If Mustang was going after Hawkeye he would assume she'd taken all of what was missing. He hadn't been stupid enough to put some in the commander's coffee, too, and give the whole game away (little did he know that the Colonel had other informants)

"'Course, knowing the two of them she might not actually be stealing it," Havoc pointed out, settling down into his chair and pulling out his box of matches. "Jessica from downstairs said she saw them headed off on their lunch breaks…together. I believe that's my money you have in your pockets."

The other three grumbled unkind things and surrendered up wads of cash. "You'll probably lose it in the game anyway," one of them said.

"How much you wanna bet I won't?"

"Isn't that like double-bluffing?" Fury asked.

"What the hell is double-bluffing?" Havoc asked.

Fury stopped. After all, this was Havoc he was talking to. "Never mind."

Breda snorted. "No bet. You lose your money like the rest of us. What're we using for chips?"

"I may have a solution," Falman said, and nodded his head towards Mustang's desk.

Havoc chuckled and counted his money. "I think I may like."

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An hour later…

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"What, if I may ask, went on in here?" The Colonel stood open-mouthed in the half-assembled doorway that was (just barely) his company's collective office. Two of the walls were riddled with bullet holes, and most of the room's contents had been scattered over the half-ripped-up carpeting. If his two holes in the floor hadn't been bad enough…

He looked back at Lieutenant Hawkeye, who seemed as though she didn't trust herself to speak.

"Where've you been, C'lonel? Havoc sauntered up from an indeterminate location down the hall, hands behind his back and a smoking cigarette protruding from his lips.

"Put that out," Mustang said, snatched the roll and stomped it into a preexisting soot stain of Falman's.

"Aww, that wa' my last rite, ya know."

"Last rite? What the hell—?"

"As pertain'ng to—"

"Allow me," Hawkeye said, and walked into the room. She knelt next to a scattering of little round objects, picked a few up and held them out. "You four were in here playing poker again, but you didn't have any chips because the Colonel melted them along with everything else in Falman's locker. So you were using these instead."

"Those are my collector's lids," Mustang said, and looked again to Havoc, who shrugged clumsily. "I had them all stacked according to vintage, too! And what were you doing in my bottom drawer anyway?"

"You have forty-seven of them," the Lieutenant continued, "but they probably needed a few more to round things out, so they uncapped a few of the bottles. Knowing our company, the vapors were probably just all too enticing. How much have you had to drink, Second Lieutenant?"

"Well, between us…"

Hawkeye had already found the two empty fifths and held them up.

"My two hundred proof whiskey," Roy groaned, clenching his hands as if longing to put them around Havoc's throat. "You idiots, that's not the kind of stuff you want to chug in the middle of the day—"

"Top stuff, C'lonel," Havoc said gleefully, and hiccoughed. "I didn' have nearl' as mumuch as Falllman. They ain' getting' him t' talk today."

Hawkeye began to gather the bottle caps. "I'm guessing Breda shot first, at you, judging by the height of the holes in the wall. You jumped up and dropped all your winnings—Were you cheating?—grabbed your weapon and started firing back. At this point Fury must have seized Breda, seeing as how the bullet holes start to climb up toward the ceiling, and started to drag him out the door…at which point you went for the shotgun and took that chunk out of the door."

"Tha's abou' right," Havoc said, sounding impressed and monumentally stupid at the same time. "He wa' mad't me 'cause I won the bet tha' you two'd be hightailin' it outta here as soon as noone wa'looking."

The Colonel stared at his underling, felt his left eye start to twitch. Hawkeye took the much more direct approach and lugged one of the heavy glass bottles at Havoc, who wasn't much in the presence of mind to duck.

"Ow, what'd'ya do that forrr?"

"It takes more than lunch for anyone to get 'tail' off of me," she said roughly. She steamed her way forward and shoved the other bottle and a small mound of collectable caps into her commander's hands. "You'd better take everything home before whoever's making Breda squeal figures out where they got their supply."

"It's more than an armful, if you'd like to help," Mustang called as she went hurriedly to the break room.

"Di' you?" Havoc asked, hiccoughing again."

"What?"

"Ge' any."

I might have been worth messing with their minds, Mustang though, and grinned.

"You di,' dint you?"

Mustang continued to grin.

"I won' tell," Havoc said.

The Colonel shrugged, pulled his black overcoat off its hook and went to his desk. He began piling the contents of his bottom drawer into his makeshift tote, as Havoc staggered over and continued to press him. "Aw, c'mon Roy ol' boy, ya c'n say so. 'S'not like I'd be sururprised or nuthin.'"

The barely-absent Hawkeye returned, tucking a small flask of something into the inside pocket of her jacket. "I figure my tea mug is safe enough here. What is it, Havoc?"

Havoc imitated his superior's grin. "He won't tell me if you guys did it or not."

She stopped dead in the middle of the room and stared. Then, very slowly, she began to blush.

Havoc giggled. "I knew it!"

"In your dreams, the both of you!" Hawkeye rolled her eyes, turned on her heel, and paced straight back out of the office. A few seconds later, she was back. "Oh, and by the way, I just heard from Scheszka that the four of you boys are having your weapons privileges suspended until further notice…'Further notice' being dependent on whether or not you get to keep your jobs."

Havoc whimpered.

Mustang shrugged, knotted up his coat and made for the door as well. "Don't ask me. I was on my break."

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Message to readers: If you're getting this stuff on authoralert…I would really like some feedback (good, bad, suggestions etc.); please post reviews.

BTW:

-The 'Great Equalizer' I referred to in this chapter is the A-bomb. The reference was a bit obscure, sorry.

-For anyone who doesn't know this, 200-proof whiskey is 100 percent alcohol. A 'fifth' is one-fifth of a gallon, or about 750 mL. Two fifths of pure ethyl alcohol is a LOT for four people over the course of an hour. If it weren't for artistic license Havoc and the others would be puking their guts out. Which would have been funny too, probably. Oh well.

-Yes, I realize there are a bunch of questions I haven't answered. All will eventually be told in further chapters. Hopefully I'll have a computer at Xmas to work with…have to leave mine at the dorms. Thank you USB memory sticks.

-Sorry for the weird breaks. FFnet's line break thing was acting wonky