A/N: Hello, friends! It's been a while, hasn't it? Well, a while by my standards :) Another long one. This one got kind of ridiculous, at least compared to some of my other stories. But, oh, it was fun to write! Thanks again to all my wonderful reviewers/readers. You guys keep me going! And just in case anyone was wondering the results of the poll are as follows:

Second Place: A three-way tie between "Revenge and Retribution", "Growing Pains", and "What They'll Never Say"

First Place: "Safe"

It was awesome to see that, because my top two favorites are 1."Safe" and 2."Won't Let It Be You". Nice to know we're on the same wavelength! Thanks to everyone that voted!

I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist, or any of its characters.

What Friends Are For

*Inspired by the popular belief that a friend will bail you out of jail, but a best friend will be sitting in the next cell over*

Mustang should have known how much trouble he was in the second his office door flew open. Only one person was capable of bursting through it in that particular manner, shaking the frame with such violent enthusiasm.

"Yo, Roy!"

Hughes didn't visit Eastern Headquarters very often. His own duties kept him busy enough over in Central, and so Mustang's contact with his best friend was limited to the weekly, three-hour-long phone call, during which Hughes babbled and Mustang silently contemplated the vein throbbing in his temple.

Occasionally, Hughes was able to squeeze some personal time into his schedule. When he didn't choose to spend it at home, with his wife and daughter, he would hop on a train and head East, to check up on his best friend and future Furher hopeful.

Every time Hughes visited, something invariably went awry. Back when Mustang still worked in Central, they'd seen each other every day, and so they'd been able to control themselves to a certain degree. But somehow, the gaps in time that both men now had to sit through until they could see each other seemed to piss off the spirit of the college kids still living within them. When they finally got within ten feet of each other, after spending so much time apart, they regressed at a rather alarming rate.

Mustang still shuddered when he thought of Hughes' last visit to the base. He never had figured out how to get the scorch marks off the ceiling, and it had taken Hawkeye hours to convince Fuery to come out from under his dormitory bed.

So, really, the instant that door flew open, Mustang should have known just how much trouble he was in. He'd been half expecting this visit, because by now General Yu was back in Central, and flapping his giant mouth about Roy and his shady subordinates. And, sure enough, the first thing Hughes had done was take a slow and measured sweep of his best friend's injuries. Though his cheerful grin had never faltered, his green eyes had gone hot and hard behind his glasses as he observed the fading bruises and very slight hunch still in Mustang's stance.

Then, his glasses had flashed white, and his smile had stretched to manic proportions. And even though Roy had fought in numerous battles, and seen more horror in his life than he'd ever be able to forget, a small thrill of terror had still shot down his spine.

"You need to relax a little," Hughes had announced.

And before Roy's apprehensive refusal could leave his lips, Hughes was sticking his head out the office door he'd just kicked in, and calling out a cheerful invitation to all of Roy's subordinates.

"How do you gentlemen feel about taking a little R and R time tonight? Is that bar still down the street?"

Havoc and Breda's whoops of joy had echoed around the office, along with Falman's monotone agreement, and Fuery's hesitant acceptance.

"Hughes," Roy had warned. "I don't think that bar will serve us. Not after last time."

And Hughes had shot that smile over his shoulder, and Roy's stomach had plummeted once again.

"Sure they will," Hughes had said, and the smug expression on his face had been downright terrifying. "Have a little faith in my investigative skills, would ya?"

And that was how Roy found himself sitting in the corner booth of the bar down the street, squeezed next to a silent Hawkeye who was all but radiating disapproval, and being served drink after drink by waiters that still went white at the sight of Hughes.

Roy didn't overindulge as a rule. A glass of whiskey after work was fine, as it served to smooth out the anxieties of a stressful day, and could be consumed in the privacy of his own home. But going to a bar and getting sloshed in public was something Roy avoided, because he was aware that there were eyes on him all the time. But that inner college student, whose voice should have been getting smaller and smaller every day, leapt forward at the sight of his best friend and former roommate. Back in college, Hughes had been able to talk Roy into just about anything, and it distressed him greatly to see that that still hadn't changed.

So every time Hughes saw him empty his glass, he cheerfully called for another round, and an increasingly tipsy Roy was baffled by the fact that his protests started to sound weaker and weaker as the night went on.

Somewhere around the eighth drink, Roy's world faded into a swimming mass of color and sound. Around the tenth drink, it went completely black. He woke up the next morning, alone in his bed with no idea how he'd gotten there, and with only a vague outline of what had happened the night before.

He scented coffee, and followed it like a child being led by the pied piper. He found Hughes in the kitchen, already up and dressed, and looking obnoxiously chipper. Roy recalled, with a surge of sour envy and near maniacal hatred, that Hughes never suffered from hangovers. The man could drink himself stupid on the scotch that he favored, and then wake up at some ungodly hour, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

"Morning, Roy!" Hughes chirped.

Roy responded with a bad-tempered grunt.

"I just got off the phone with Gracia," Hughes continued, apparently unfazed by the black cloud hanging over Roy's head. "She said that Elysia had all of her little friends over for a tea party yesterday. Can you imagine? My daughter, already the perfect hostess at three years old! She's a prodigy Roy, I swear."

Roy did his best to block out the cheerful buzz of his best friend's voice. It was cutting through his head like a chainsaw.

"You're awfully quiet," Hughes observed, plopping down at the kitchen table next to Roy. "What are you thinking about?"

"Your demise," Roy said, in carefully enunciated whispers. "I'm going to send you back to your wife on a serving platter. Does she prefer well done, or extra crispy?"

"Aw, come on!" The slap on the back that Hughes delivered to Roy nearly sent the alchemist face first into his coffee cup. "You had fun last night, didn't you?"

"I don't know," Roy said, and his glare could have frozen a forest fire. "Things got a little fuzzy after the eighth drink you shoved into my hand."

"Can't remember?" The words were sympathetic, but the effect was ruined by the underlying snicker in Hughes' voice. "Don't worry, buddy. I brought my camera along."

Roy froze in the act of bringing his mug to his mouth.

"You have…pictures?"

"Sure do!"

Hughes slapped a glossy stack of photos onto the table. In Roy's horror, it didn't even occur to him to ask how his friend had gotten pictures from last night developed so fast. It would've been a moot question anyway. Hughes always had his sources.

"See, this was right after that eighth drink you mentioned."

"Why am I under the table?"

"You were upset about the fact that Black Hayate doesn't seem to like you, so decided to try and sell your more charming personality traits to the dog via a serious conversation."

Roy grunted. It was the most flattering self-portrait, but Hughes had definitely snapped worse.

"And this one," Hughes tapped the next photo in the stack.

"Havoc is bleeding. Why is Havoc bleeding?"

"Well, after downing several glasses of liquid courage, he finally worked up the swagger to flirt with one of the waitresses."

"So?"

"Ah…well, it turns out that the 'waitress' was actually a rather pretty man, who was just a bit sensitive about his effeminate appearance."

Roy snickered into his coffee. Hearing about Havoc's abysmal romantic overtures always brightened his mood. But Hughes wasn't done, not by a long shot, and neither were his photographs.

"And then there's this one," Hughes slid the picture under Roy's nose. "It might be my favorite."

Roy squinted at the photo, and dark eyes went wide.

"Hughes, what the hell is Fullmetal doing there?"

"About halfway through your ninth drink, you started lavishing very loud and sloppy gratitude on me for making you go out. You then decided that if you were going to relax, and the majority of your staff was going to join you, then ALL of your subordinates needed to participate. So you called Ed and told him you had a mission for him. He came down to the bar at your request. You told him his mission was 'to pull the alchemically crafted stick out of his ass for a night and unwind a little'."

"So why is he punching Breda instead of me?"

"Well, Ed refused, and started calling you an idiot, and a very drunk idiot at that, and then Breda told him that he was just jealous that your body could hold more liquor than Ed's tiny little frame."

Roy pressed his fingers against his eyes, hard, and briefly considered just poking them out.

"Is Breda still capable of performing basic human functions, such as walking and speaking? Or did Fullmetal beat those out of him?"

"Fuery had to help him home at the end of the night, and he had a couple of impressive bruises showing already. But he was pretty out of it, so you…ah, might want to advise a visit to the infirmary when you see him next."

"Duly noted."

Hughes shuffled through the stack.

"Anyway, Breda's little remark led to this next photo," he said.

Roy frowned at the snapshot of Ed, surrounded by at least five glasses of some unnamed liquid, and apparently in the middle of slamming the sixth.

"Please tell me that isn't-"

"Six glasses of the bar's best house ale," Hughes confirmed.

"Hughes, you let them serve alcohol to a minor?"

"I didn't let them do anything," Hughes protested quickly. "Ed was determined to prove that he could drink 'an idiot like that bastard colonel' under the table. And once the bartender saw his watch, he wasn't going to argue. And besides, you were the one that kept egging him on."

"I did not."

"Sure did," Hughes corrected cheerfully. He shoved a different photograph in Roy's face, one that showed him sitting at the other end of the table, sporting a drink and a wobbly smirk, while Havoc, Falman, and a battered Breda leapt about behind him. "You kept trying to persuade Ed to give it up; told him that 'there's no way someone as puny and shrimp-like as you could ever defeat me in anything other than a game of limbo'. Your subordinates were in the background yelling, 'Chug, chug ,chug'."

"Oh, God. Why didn't someone stop me? Where was Hawkeye?" At the sound of his first lieutenant's name, Roy's already waxy face went white. "Hawkeye. Shit. Hughes, I didn't say anything…inappropriate, did I?"

"Well, that depends on how you define the word 'inappropriate'," Hughes said after a moment's contemplation. "I certainly don't think there's anything wrong with suggesting that Hawkeye 'ditch the drab military uniform and stock her closet with miniskirts'. She's a very beautiful woman, after all." Hughes gave his best friend's back another jovial slap. "You know, she'd make an excellent wif-"

Roy's snarl stopped the sentence mid-word, and Hughes hurriedly withdrew his arm.

"Anyway," Hughes said, after clearing his throat. "You might want to wait a while before calling her. You know, give her time to put her guns away, and all that."

If Roy's head hadn't already been aching, he would have smashed it against the table by now. There was always the chance the he'd knock himself unconscious, an option that was becoming more appealing by the minute.

"Is that all?" he asked wearily. "Or was there something else you wanted to show me?"

Hughes shuffled through his deck of photographs once again.

"Maybe just a couple more relevant ones," he said. "Like this one."

The picture Hughes held in front of his face was obviously an action shot, and so Roy had to squint to make out what was going on. There was a flailing golden blob towards the bottom of the picture, with a hazy shape pinning it down. And a little further away, a taller blob, colored blue and black, was in the process of falling towards the ground.

"Why is Breda sitting on Ed?" Roy peered harder. "And is Hawkeye kicking my feet out from under me?"

"After Ed finished his drinks, you two got into a pretty spirited argument, one that ended with Ed challenging you to an alchemic duel. After the staff expressed an understandable fear for their establishment, your subordinates decided that your actions should probably be aborted."

"I guess that's good, at least. Anything else?"

"Just one more."

Hughes pulled a photograph from the bottom of the pile and held it out to Roy. After setting down his coffee cup, Roy took it. He had to blink several times before his brain would process what it was seeing.

"Ed fell asleep on the floor while Breda was sitting on him," Hughes explained. "And Hawkeye decided that that marked an end to the evening's festivities. Havoc volunteered to take him back to the dormitories, but you sort of insisted on doing it yourself."

The picture showed Ed, barely awake and obviously out of it, leaning hard on Mustang. Roy noted with curious disbelief that his arm was wrapped around the kid's shoulders, which must have been a good thing, because by the looks of it, Fullmetal would have fallen over without the support. Hawkeye was on the boy's other side, and hardly in the frame at all. She had one hand pressed, in what appeared to be an absent gesture, against the boy's head, and there was a subtle softness in her face. Those who didn't know his first lieutenant wouldn't have seen that softness, but Roy had known Hawkeye for years now, and so he could read it.

They looked…comfortable. Cozy. Almost like a family. An obviously drunk, sort of sloppy family, but the underlying theme was there.

"You know, it's normal for a kid to get drunk for the first time with his father," Hughes said sweetly, interrupting Roy's internal monologue.

"Shut up, Hughes."

"What a witty comeback. Although, I can't help but notice that you aren't exactly arguing the point."

Years of being best friends with an alchemist had honed Hughes' reflexes, and so he was able to snatch the pictures out of Roy's hands and off the table before Roy could get his glove all the way on.

"I'll give you ten seconds," Roy purred, climbing to his feet. "Because I'm hung over."

Hughes, who was already out of his chair and halfway out the kitchen door, grinned.

"Aw, come on, Roy! If you want a copy that bad, I can get one for you. And oooh, maybe a nice silver frame for your desk! After all, isn't that where most proud daddies put pictures of their kids?"

Not for the first time, Roy was grateful for the fence surrounding his back yard. It would hurt his reputation quite a bit if anyone was to spot him chasing his best friend around the lawn, two grown men, one still in his pajamas, and one clutching a stack of photos protectively against his chest.

He'd never, ever admit it, but it was the most fun he'd had in a long time. Leave it to Hughes, to always know exactly what he needed.