Disclaimer: do not own Transformers.

Summary: Oneshot. A year and a day after Egypt. Autobots and NEST personnel are celebrating, while Galloway goes to get nicely drunk. Galloway, meet Simmons. You won't remember him once you're good and sober, but he used to have your title of obnoxious official. Simmons, meet Galloway. He's a bit drunk at the moment, so take advantage of his honesty while you can.

Rated: T

Author note: Galloway wanted to get piss-drunk and have a good rant. Simmons wanted to see who inherited his title of Obnoxious Xenophobic Squishy. I let them. : ) I hope you enjoy!

Year and a Day

"Hey, Skids?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm bored."

"Well, what do you expect? Everyone's out celebrating the fall of, well, the Fallen…"

"We should do something."

"We could always bait Galloway. He's always good for a laugh."

"Good idea! But how'll we pull it off? We'll need a middleman here."

"You think Simmons'll help?"

"No harm in asking, brother. No harm."

X x X

Simmons sat on a barstool, out in the middle of nowhere. Drunken or just plain passed out people were huddled in the corners, shunning both him an equally drunk Galloway, seated on the stool next to him.

"What did you expect?" Simmons asked casually. Galloway still had a defensive, angry look, as though expecting some form of retaliation. He'd just finished insulting the great Optimus Prime. "An angry protest?" Simmons continued. "A kick in the nuts? A slap to the face? A rousing speech about how oh-so-loveable-and-shiny the robots are? Hey, I ain't one of their demented cheerleaders and I ain't about to play one."

"How can you stand them?" Galloway asked, his tone much warmer than usual. Galloway, it seemed, was a highly emotional drunk, quickly passing from friendly to angry and back again.

"I think it's because of my snowflake-special personality," Simmons replied, Cheshire grin wide. He took a sip from his own, much smaller mug. "But you know why they tolerate me?"

"Why?"

"It's because I have the bullets to back me up. What do you have? A title and a shiny badge? That's all you have to go on?" Simmons gave a short laugh. "You're not going to survive here."

Galloway gave a short laugh. "Survive? You call this surviving? Here I am, getting piss-drunk when your precious Autobots are celebrating."

"Hey!" Simmons snapped. He actually sounded seriously offended this time. "Let's get one thing straight. They're not mine."

"Sure," Galloway said skeptically, and he took another long drink, and sighed. "And I wonder what they're celebrating about."

"Stopping the end of the world?" Simmons put in, his tone mock-helpful.

"Stopping it?" Galloway laughed. "They are the end of the world. We just don't see it yet."

"Well, there was Egypt," Simmons answered, in that same mocking tone. "And before that, Mission City…"

"Mission City!" Galloway repeated, sharply. He glared at Simmons. "They're celebrating that? There was nothing in there to celebrate!"

"Oh?" Simmons was still grinning. He seemed to be highly enjoying himself at the deteriorating Galloway's expense.

"What are they celebrating? The fact that they killed so many in that city?"

The smirk was immediately wiped off Simmons' face.

Galloway was already continuing. "You ever have to go to your brother and tell him his kids died in an accident when you knew it was murder?"

Simmons clenched his fists.

"You ever have to go waltzing in, every single day dealing with the things you knew helped kill them?"

Simmons' jaw bone tensed.

"You ever have to go to work everyday, knowing that the murderers are being heralded as heroes? Having to listen, again and again and again, how they're so sorry when you know they aren't? And all you could do is stand there, like a good little human, because no matter how fucked up they are, if the majority says they're gods, then—"

Then Simmons grabbed the man's shirt collar. "You know," he said, his tone still casual. "I'm starting to get why a lot of people just want to punch you in the teeth."

Then Galloway did something totally unexpected.

He laughed. And when he finished, he looked at Simmons, glass-eyed. "So you do know how it feels like."

Simmons released him, calmly. Then they both continued, sitting with one another, as though nothing had happened.

"Found an alien artifact. Great," Galloway said, his voice having a slight sing-song tone. "Aliens coming after it. Not so great. Then those soldiers decided that it'd be a good idea to drag the Cube through a populated area, knowing full well that those monsters would be coming after them, but hey, what does it matter? Just a city full of civilians. Many of those lying around. No one's gonna miss that, and besides, the higher the body pile, the safer the Cube! No alien can scan for the cube when there's a city's worth of corpses they have to look through!"

A funny look passed over Simmons' face, a brief shadow over his eyes, but he regained his jaunty composure quickly.

"Well, never said it was one of our brightest ideas…"

"And then what happens?" Galloway continued. "For their decision…because they chose the robots' race over the humans, they don't get a reprimand. They don't even get a slap to the wrist. They get awarded, promoted, showered in thanks and praise!" Another swig of the bottle.

"Sacrifices had to be made," Simmons said, almost carelessly, the tone of his voice tinged with…with something. "You of all people should know that. After all, you did want to sacrifice the kid."

Galloway snorted. "As if he's innocent in all this. The way I saw it, he went along with the aliens, he's just as guilty for all those deaths, and enough people have died for him already."

"Hey. You only get to play that card if you're the one willing to be sacrificed."

Galloway looked at Simmons, and leaned forward. "What do you think I'm still doing here?"

There was a pause. Simmons leaned backward in his chair, and raised an eyebrow. "I don't know, Galloway. What are you still doing here?"

A pause. You could almost hear the cogs turning in Galloway's currently alcohol fogged-up mind. "I don't know!" Galloway proclaimed, rather loudly. They got looks from other bar patrons, but the other drunkards of the night lost interest quickly. "You know what? Maybe that's the answer. Maybe we all deserve to die. I mean, we were screwed enough before they came!

"Well, considering our track record for violence…" Simmons said mildly, as though he merely wished to irk the man further.

"Our track record? How about theirs? Oh yeah," Galloway said, and tone of his voice deepened in a poor imitation of an Autobot. "'We refuse to give you our highly-advanced weaponry because we fear that you'll slaughter each other. You're history does not give us confidence.' Well, you know what, soldier?" Galloway continued. "That's fucking rich! That's rich coming from a race that killed everything on their own planet, came to ours and decided that they had the right to cast judgment!"

"Well, yeah," Simmons said, still in a mild, calm, casual tone. "I guess they're a bit hypocritical for highly advanced alien robots—"

"We just have to keep relying on them," Galloway continued. "We have to keep being on the fact that they won't turn on us, rely on the fact that they won't get bored of us, rely on the fact that they even think we're worth protecting! One of these days they might just get up and go, leaving us defenseless!"

"To be fair, that was what you were trying to do, what with the whole 'Leave Earth Now,' routine…"

"And if they cared, they'd have told us how to defend ourselves!" Galloway said. "You know what's the worst thing, though? Sometimes, I can't blame them. We were screwed enough as it was!" Galloway repeated, slurring his words. "Just look at the world! We're all fucked. I don't know why we don't all just go to bed at the end of the day, shrivel up and die."

Simmons was smiling again. "Well, that would sure solve a lot of problems. I know a lot of people who'd be happy if you did just that. But if you think that, then why do you keep coming? A man like you, you could always ask for a job switch. Why stay with the robots? Are you a sadist, or something? What, you like the pain of coming here every day?"

"I don't believe them," Galloway spat. "They keep saying that they'll protect us. They keep saying they mean no harm. But you know what I see? I see that they've screwed themselves over, and they could go to whatever they have of a hell for all I care," Galloway said. He took another swig.

"Funny how that works, isn't it?" Simmons asked, smiling jovially. "We hate them on the basis of how they're giant killer robots, and we get slapped with a whole slew of unpleasantness. They hate us on the basis of our primitive, violent nature, and all they get is mild annoyance."

"We've always been our own worst enemies."

"That's true."

"No choice, though. There isn't any turning back. We just gotta work with…what we got, s'pose." A drunken laugh, a hiccough. "But, goddamn me, I don't know why…I don't know why I still believe in us. This is a world totally empty, and I still believe that we can make something out of it. You know, if the robots don't kill us all first."

"Is that why you stay?"

"That's the only reason I can get out of the house every day."

Galloway was winding down, his drunken rage spent. Simmons waited until the man had calmed down enough, and he took Galloway's cell phone from the desk, and called someone to pick the drunken man up.

He regarded the man for a moment, his smile still plastered on his face, still mirthless. Then he calmly slung his jacket over his shoulder, turned his back on the now-slumbering Galloway, and went out of the bar. In the parking lot, he stood in front of two cars. "You still want to play abduct the obnoxious bureaucrat?" Simmons said.

His smile was acidic.

The twins, for once, were silent.