Chapter Text
Roy Mustang, Maes determined, needed one thing. And that one thing was to stop getting so completely, utterly shit-faced.
It was some counterintuitive, entirely unhelpful bullshit, was what it was. Maes would actually understand, if it helped. He would. He wouldn't condone it, oh no sir, because he was the Best Friend, and budding alcoholism wasn't something Best Friends ought to condone. But he'd at least be able to understand it, and some days even support it. If it actually did make things easier for Roy, in any way at all, then there was a part of Maes that probably wouldn't even have the heart to try and take the bottle away.
If it helped.
One big, fat, whopping if.
Alcohol had also never helped anybody, ever, deal with anything at all, ever, in the history of time, so, quite honestly, he didn't even know what the hell Roy had been expecting in the first place. It was a depressant, so Roy really had no right to be so damn well surprised when getting sloshed meant getting depressed, every single time. It lowered inhibitions and defenses, so Roy had no right to go after a bottle of whiskey to 'take the edge off', to, 'feel better', and then somehow not see it coming that it would just lead to him being miserable and on edge and fighting something close to a nervous breakdown all night long. It was an actual fucking poison that could kill people, so Roy really had no right at all to be oh so shocked when it made him throw up and struggling through a searing headache under Hawkeye's glare in the office the next day, every single time.
Really, Maes wasn't all that surprised himself, either.
Roy was not stupid. Criminally reckless, maybe. But not stupid. He was a chemist and a scientist, could drink most of the military, Maes included, under the table, and had grown up around alcohol since he could barely walk.
No, Roy Mustang, for all his very many, varied arrogant bastard, smart-ass faults, was not stupid.
He knew exactly what that bottle would do, every time he cracked it open.
"M's." One sloppy, almost impressively uncoordinated hand flopped to tug on his sleeve, trying to tug him closer. All that was really accomplished was the loosening of numb fingers, and his hand dropping to dangle stupidly above the floor. "Should... shouldn't, you..."
"Yeah?"
The words trailed off into nothing more than a morose shake of a head, Roy slumped at all but a ninety degree angle to plant his face into the nearest pillow. Whatever he said next, Maes honestly had no idea- just that the words, exhausted and flat, took their sweet time to trail off, crumbled into a muffled, "...my fault."
"Hm?" Maes nudged one heavy foot, watching with mild interest as it slid and thumped rather like an inanimate object rather than a moving, functioning limb. "That you sound like you've melted your brain to the consistency of yogurt, about? I agree, that is your fault. It is completely your fault, you self-loathing idiot; it's your fault every time you do this. You're going to drink yourself into a coma one day and it's going to be entirely on you, and apparently I'm going to be there tossing you into a cold shower after it, because apparently I can't stay away."
And now the sobbing was starting, of course, again, just great; not at anything Maes had said, surely not. It'd be impressive if Roy could even listen enough to follow the little speech from beginning to end. No, just the mental defenses taken a sledgehammer to, Roy's cold, hard arrogance and smug strength during the day melted into hysteria, because that was what alcohol did, and Roy wouldn't stop fucking drinking. And now he was doing it all again; pathetic little dry sobs, shoulders heaving, face planted still into the pillow, mumbled words utterly incoherent, and Maes might've just been sympathetic if this wasn't the third dammed time this week.
"...Maes," he sighed. Voice gone thick and congested, and his tongue so slurred and heavy it made Maes' own stomach roll. Or maybe that was the smell of alcohol, so strong he felt just a little bit drunk himself.
The hand flopped for him again, and this time, somehow, caught just firmly enough in his sleeve to not fall.
"Ssst. Stay." The fingers tugged, and they tugged and they tugged and they tugged, and they kept tugging until Maes gave in at last, and gripped them back in his own. "Stay with me."
Maes, this time, sighed himself.
It was quiet, for a bit.
"I shouldn't, you know." He raised an eyebrow, nodding at the turned over glass and bottle, chinking faintly still on the glass table with every particularly uncoordinated move Roy made. "You keep getting yourself into this."
Give me a reason I should stay, when you could choose to leave.
"M's," he mumbled, again.
Maes stayed.