"Son, you need to stop while you still have a liver."

I send the glass hurling at his direction, or at least what I think is his direction. The crashing glass sound coming from the wall in front of me tells me I'm off. Fuck it, and fuck him.

I hear the ass bartender scoff, as he grabs a rag, wiping down the contents of my scotch spilled on the counter. But then I hear him murmur something.

"Soldiers these days. No wonder they're dropping like flies."

I bolt up from my seat, my head spinning from god knows how many days of drinking. But that doesn't matter. as soon as I can focus, I grab the bartender's collar and lug him over the bar.

"What. Did. You. Just. Say?" I growl out.

The geezer looks like he's about ready to shit himself. He stammers out some half assed apology, but I'm done. I'm done with random people giving me their half-assed condolences. Weeks of having to listen to every single damn "I'm sorry you lost your best friend." And ever shitting "He was a good soldier." I am so done, so angry I could kill someone, just like the bastard who I'm going to kill did to Hughes.

Just like I'm going to do to this old bastard right here.

At least that what I think before the bouncer comes over and I turn my intentions to beating the ever-loving shit out of him.

So, maybe that wasn't the best idea, with it ending with me on the sidewalk, nursing a black eye. Apparently the bar called one of my emergency contacts to come pick me up. It just pisses me off even more. I'm half tempted to just leave, instead of having someone on my team take me home and tuck me in bed like some teen having his first drink. I haven't seen them in a week, I don't need their first impression in a while to be how pathetic I've been dealing with this whole idea.

Especially if she's the one they contacted. Who am I kidding? Of course they called her. I gotta get out of here. If I see her looking at me with that disappointed look on her face, I'll kill someone for real.

I stand up, the dim lights of the street buzzing through my vision. I take a few steps, stumbling a bit, before falling flat on my face. I groan in pain, and I hear footsteps coming towards me. The gravel crunches, and I lift my face up to see one I know all too well.

"So, this is where you've been, sir?"

"Don't patronize me, Lieutenant." I snarl.

"It was a legitimate question. As is this one: do you want a hand up?"

I lift myself up, brushing off her offer for help as I steady myself onto the lamppost. "And no, I haven't spent all week here?"

She raises an eyebrow. "Exactly how many bars have you been to this week?"

"Hell if I know," I answer truthfully. "But this has been the only I've been kicked out of."

"And it's going to be the only one. I'm taking you home."

I frown. "I'm not done, I still have a drink to finish."

She sighs. "Permission to act freely, sir?"

I shrug. No concern of mine, as long as she's gone, and I get my-

I feel her tug my arm as she yanks me behind her, towards a car. I struggle as best as I can, but she just pulls harder. Damn, she's not usually this strong.

"And you're not usually this drunk."

Crap, did I say that out loud?

"Yes, you did"

Damn.

"Language."

I glare at her as she opens the door to the car, and puts me in.

"I'm not drunk." I tell her. She just rolls her eyes- the nerve of her- and she deadpans

"Keep telling yourself that, sir."

She slams the door, and I simmer down into my seat. She rears around the side into the driver seat, and turned the ignition on. The car buzzes to life and a jolt a bit. Soon, we're on the road, silence surrounding the car. I fight the urge to look at her, but it soon gets the best of me. She's focused on the road intently. But there's something in her eyes that seems off. When we pass by a street lamp, the light hit her face and I can see dark circles under her eyes. Shit.

"Lieutenant what time is it?"

"Three in the morning, sir."

Shit's right. Why didn't I realize that? Now that I'm starting to get ,my vision in focus, and my heads starting to throb a bit, I realize she's in a pair of pajamas.

"Crap, did you wake up just to bring me home?"

She pauses for a moment. "Wouldn't be the first time."

I wince. I forgot about that. Whenever I had a fight with her dad during my apprenticeship, i'd go out and get drunk, just to piss the old geezer off. Of course, it ended with him and an equally pissed Riza dragging my ass home. Hawkeyes were forces to be reckoned with, even when one was in pink flannel pajamas and the other was wearing fuzzy slippers and a bathrobe. I chuckle at the thought.

"What's so funny?"

"Just thinking of when your father used to come to the bar and smack me with his slippers."

I see a ghost of a smile cross her lips. "And then when you got a hangover, he'd make you balance an alchemy text on your head till the headache went away."

"It doesn't work, it just hurts like a bitch."

"That was the point"

I scoff. "You Hawkeyes are sadistic bastards, you know that?"

She laughs. Actually laughs. If I wasn't wasted, i'd revel in the rare sound. But for now, it just makes my head throb. She murmurs a sorry, and it's silent again. The streets a blurred in my eyes, so I can't tell if we're going to my house or hers. Probably mine, she's made it very clear in the past that if I was getting smashed on work time, i'd be the one to take care of my own hangover. Well screw that, I have a perfectly good bottle of tequila somewhere in the cabinets. Few more drinks, and no hangover. Just perfectly wonderful hate-filled intoxication. I could stand to use a few more days of not feeling like murdering so one or myself.

"-help you."

I turn myself towards her direction. I didn't realizes she was still talking. "What was that?"

"I said he was just trying to help you, we all were. Dad, me...Maes." a cringe, she notices, but continues with sadness in her eyes." We all just wanted to help you reach your potential."

I roll my eyes. "Well, you did. Congratulations. I'm at my best. A pathetic drunk mess who looks like shit."

"Now sir, you don't-" she pauses, does a once over of me,.and then frowns. "Actually, you're right, you look pretty bad."

'And somehow you look like a goddess, even at three at the morning' is what I want to say, but the only thing that comes out is "Gee, thanks."

The car is silent and awkward for a minute, before she starts up again. "You know he wouldn't want this."

It stings, when she tells the truth so blatantly. It adds to my built up rage,and I seeth out "I know."

"Then why do you keep on doing-?"

"Why? Why? Oh, I don't know, maybe it's because I'm a human being! Maybe it's because that's what happens when a human being loses his best friend! It's the one thing I can do to prove that I am human-."

"Now you stop that right there, Maes's death is no excuse for you to-."

"Not that you'd know anything about feelings."

The car comes to a stop in an abrupt jerk. I get a bit of whiplash,and yell a few curses before she turns to me, eyes filled with rage and horror.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

I keep going, I'm itching to get all this anger out, and I don't care how. "I wonder? I, I know! It means you're a heartless bitch who hasn't shed a tear over the death of so one you've known since you were six-."

My cheek stings when she slaps me. Hard. Hard enough to send me crashing against the car door. I hold my assaulted flesh as I turn to her, ready to yell at her, until I see her face. My stomach drops.

Her eyes, red as amethysts, not quite Ishvalan, but something close, are shiny with tears as her lip quivers. Her brow is scrunched in a cross between utter rage and despair, as she begins to hiccup, her shoulders shaking at the sound.

What have I done?

"Lieutenant, I-."

She slaps me again.

"Hawkeye, please-"

Somehow harder this time.

"Riza, for fuck's sake, I'm sor-!"

She punches this time. In the eye. Now I'm going to have two black eyes.

"No. Don't speak. Don't say anything, and don't you damn say you're sorry. You've gone too far this time."

She unbuckles herself, and in a panic, I grab her arm.

"Wait. What are you-."

"Getting you out. You're walking from here. Now let go!"

"No! Not until you listen!"

She shakes my hand off. "I'm done listening to your 'woe is me' shit, Mustang!"

Her eyes ate a brilliant fierceness, even with tears in them, as burn right into my soul. "If you truly cared about Maes, you'd be using his death as a motive to live your life to the fullest, by not let him dying hold you back. That's what Maes would've wanted, for us to stop wasting our lives crying over what we lost, and get on with it!"

I'm speechless. I don't know what to do. Don't know what to say. I can only croak out her name. She resumes what she was doing, and I a panic, I fling myself around her waist, grasping tightly. She viciously tries to fight me off.

"Get off, Roy!"

"No! If you'd-ouch!-you'd just- ow!Hey!-just listen!"

She stiffens abruptly when my hand accidentally slipped under the hem of her shirt, and is pressed against her stomach. I feel jagged flesh, almost like a-

All the air on my lungs is pushed out when I feel an elbow in my stomach. I hear a door clicking open behind me before I'm shoved out of my seat, landing on my ass. I look up her, confused as all hell. My blood freezes.

All sorrow is washed away from her eyes is replaced by pure murderous intent.

"Don't touch me there again. EVER. Got it?"

I nod dumbly. She slams the door in my face, and drives off. I have absolutely no idea what just happened. All I know is that I'm wasted, my best friend is six feet under, and the most precious person in my life probably hates me now.

I'm really going to need that glass of tequila.