This story is a oneshot based off of Brotherhood. It takes place right after Roy and Riza returned from Ishval, and Roy "set her free from her burden". Hopefully you'll catch what I mean, and if not, you will. Enjoy, and reviews are greatly appreciated!

One shot down. Roy Mustang would drink himself to death.

Three in the morning and the bar was still lively with customers, but the hype and the laughter did not affect the newly appointed Colonel as usual. He sat sadly on an old bar stool with a shot glass in hand, his tortured black eyes staring into the crystal depths. There was no one to talk to, but even if there was, there would be no words to say. He hailed the bartender and asked for another drink.

Two shots down. Roy Mustang would drown himself to death.

The burn in his throat was a sensation he both hated and craved. She wouldn't approve of this. She would be the one telling him, "Stand up sir, while you still can. We have a lot of work to do if you are to become the Fuhrer." Then, she'd smile with those big, earthy amber eyes, a smile only he could read, and walk away from him knowing he would follow.

Three shots down. Roy Mustang would break himself to death.

"You know, you really shouldn't do this to yourself, Roy."

The Colonel sighed and looked over with a downcast expression to his right as his best friend filled the empty seat next to him. Roy shook his head in irritation. "Hughes," he said with a groan. "You have a wife to get home to. What the hell are you doing here?"

"I should ask you the same question," the man said, raising his hand to the bartender and catching the shot she slid to him across the counter. "Besides, someone has to drive you home."

Another shot down.

"I can take care of myself." Roy spoke with more bitterness than he had intended.

"I'm not an idiot," Maes replied, drinking the alcohol before pushing up his glasses. "Besides, she told me you'd be here."

Roy tensed. Of course she had. "I take it you went to see her…?"

"Gracia and I both went. She's doing fine. I don't know what you're so worked up about. You saved her from a fire in Ishval. Her back got burned in the process. Accidents happen, Roy."

He sighed, shaking slightly. So that's how they were explaining this to people.

Five shots down.

Maes shook his head. "There's something you aren't telling me."

It was a truer statement than Roy would've liked to admit. "Did it ever occur to you that I'm not telling you for a reason?"

"It'd better be a damn good reason," Hughes demanded, applying a voice of authority he'd never used with the dumbstruck Colonel. "You've never hidden anything from me before. Why now?"

"It isn't as simple as that, Hughes," Roy replied as he took another shot.

Six shots down.

"You need to stop drinking." He sighed in disappointment.

Roy scoffed. "Why should I?"

"You only drink like this when you're ashamed of something, and I want you to be at least halfway sober when you tell me what it is."

"Who said I had to tell you?" said Roy, getting severely irritated. Seven shots down.

"Because," Hughes began, shaking his head, "I'm the only one you can trust who isn't currently hospitalized."

"Don't talk about her," the Colonel interjected. "I…I don't want to talk about her."

Hughes stared at him in amazement. "I don't understand why you feel so guilty."

"I don't recall ever expecting you to understand."

There was silence for several minutes. Eight shots. Nine shots down.

"Look. I know you wish she wasn't in pain from that fire, but there was nothing you could do to—"

"Hughes, drop it." Roy was strict. He rubbed his temples, trying to force the memories of what he done out of his head.

"Just do it…" she whispers, putting the leather between her teeth, ready to bite down from the pain she knows will come.

His hand shakes fiercely but he raises it nonetheless. Minutes pass. Silence drills in his mind. "I…I ca—"

She turns to look at him slowly. He will never forget that face. He will never forget her eyes in that moment.. Usually warm and bright, now they were dark and sullen. Once amber, now a depressing shade of brown. She is begging him without saying a word and it kills him. He once promised himself that he would do anything for her, and in this moment when she needs him most, he finds it impossible to hate himself more than he already does.

"I'm sorry," he mutters before applying the pressure from his middle finger to his thumb and the snap rings through the small room. The flame immediately feasts on the flesh covering her shoulder blades, boiling it until it bursts and burns in a flash of red and black.

Roy had heard the cries of those he had killed, but none affect him as much as the piercing screams of agony coming from the woman he'd just broken.

Those screams echoed in his head as he swallowed the next shot.

Ten shots down. Roy Mustang would shame himself to death.

"I have enough skeletons in my closet, Hughes, and now I've added another one."

"The burns on her back will heal," Hughes told him honestly. He decided to change the subject to diffuse the tension. "Did you know she had a tattoo? No one could read it though; it's been so severely burned. It's a shame. It probably looked pretty cool at one point."

Roy let out a shaky sigh. At least her pain wasn't worth nothing. She had gotten her wish. "Hughes."

"Yeah?"

"No one is to know about that tattoo. It's covered in burns now anyways. No one needs to know. It's the Lieutenant's business and I won't have people asking her questions when she returns to work."

Hughes looked at him with confusion. He was definitely seeing a new side of the Colonel. "Roy, is she really that important to you? I know she's your bodyguard and all, but she's just your subordinate—"

"Subordinate?" Roy shouted, immediately slamming the empty shot glass down on the counter with an angry fist. Thankfully the music and the laughter refused to die, but the awkwardness and the horror at his reaction settled slowly in. Roy wasn't drunk enough to forget military conduct. "…I'm sorry," was all he could say as he turned away from his best friend.

Hughes was not so easily calmed. He leaned back slightly, eyes wide with confusion and shock. Was that…emotion for his Lieutenant? "Roy…" he said, giving the drunken man a suspicious glance. "You couldn't possibly—"

"—love her?" Roy finished for him, looking down into the empty glass and stirring the remaining brown liquid about. There she was in his mind, the girl from his Master's house, blonde and beautiful, growing into a woman, trusting him, following him, saluting him, handing him paperwork, shooting an enemy, never failing, protecting him, staying by his side…

"Every damn day."

Hughes's mouth was slightly agape from the shock of what he'd just heard, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Were they ever apart, really? "So you…you're telling me that you're in love with your Lieutenant?"

Roy chuckled. It was strange to admit it out loud, but he somehow felt better after doing so. "No. Not with my Lieutenant…with Riza Hawkeye. And madly, Hughes. I don't think there's a time when I didn't love her." He had never been so brutally honest with himself before, let alone with another person. Eleven shots down. The bar was starting to move side to side from Roy's perspective, and the white-hot sting in his throat was becoming more bearable as it coursed through his body.

Hughes took the empty glass from Roy's hands and interrupted the Colonel before he could object. "If you love her, then think about how she'd react to seeing you here like this," he said truthfully. "You think she'd be proud of you? Knowing that after you saved her, you went and got drunk because she got hurt in the process?"

The onyx eyes widened. He could see her now: that gorgeous stern expression, those saddened eyes, that smooth voice. "Sir, you shouldn't be so worried on my behalf. I'm alright. You have bigger things to worry about." Then, she would smile, and his heart would melt. And he would give anything to lie next to her in that hospital bed.

"I did this to her though," Roy muttered, kissing goodbye any hopes of a smile at the thought of her. The image of her crumpled, burned, screaming body would never leave his head. His skeletons were banging on the door and his ghosts were threatening to let them out. "You need to get home to your wife, Hughes. Cherish her. Be lucky you were able to marry the woman you love, because it's hell living without her."

Hughes let a deep sadness overcome him as well as pity, taking another drink and watching the tears fall down the face of his best friend. "I'm sorry, Roy." It wasn't just a sympathetic apology; It was a promise to stay by his side until he decided to leave the bar, to go home and rest, and to be human again.

This wasn't something a best friend could fix. Roy needed her. He needed her smile. He needed that one look of thanks laced with love. He needed her voice. He needed her protection. No, this wasn't something that was fixable unless you were Riza Hawkeye. Because she fixes everything, she saves him, she helps him move forward and he can't function without her by his side.

Twelve shots down. Roy Mustang would drink himself to death.