Fic - "Show Me the Way to Go Home"
Mar. 18th, 2009 08:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rajTitle: "Show Me the Way to Go Home"
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
raja815
Character/Fandom: Jean Havoc/Roy Mustang. Fullmetal Alchemist.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2403
Warnings: Drunkenness.
Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist is © Hiromu Arakawa. I will make no capitol benefit from this.
Author's Notes: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
5drunkfics for the prompt "Confessions." I actually wrote this last year, and just now dragged it up from my WIP folder and edited it to post. (I'm trying to clean out the WIPs this week, so expect a lot of older fics to get finished and posted.) Heavily reliant on the traditional drinking song "Show Me the Way to Go Home." I had to call my dad to find out what the verses were, since he's the only person I've ever heard use them (couldn't even find them on the internet,) and I then had to alter them a bit to make them work in the FMA universe.
Lieutenant Havoc’s distorted reflection swims back up to him from the polished mahogany of the bar top, the swirls of mirrored blond made all the hazier by the rounds of drinks he’s already finished. Mingled snatches of conversation and the plink of the piano in the corner mix with the slosh of liquid as the bartender draws another beer from the tap nearest him. In response he swirls the dregs in his glass and motions for a refill. There’s a deep gulp from beside him, then the squeak of a stifled hiccup, and he looks over to see Colonel Mustang wiping foam from his mouth. The Pyrotex glove his commander still wears grates across his upper lip, reddening his skin. Havoc’s skin reddens too, but for a different reason.
He looks down into his fresh beer and knows he’s shot right past tipsy, which was as far as he intended to go when he’d followed Mustang into the pub after work. Knows he’s shot past drunk, too, and probably even past plastered and hammered. He’s not quite reached what Heymans used to call the ‘triple p’ (the three ‘p’s being, in order, to puke, pass out, and piss yourself) back when they were new recruits enjoying their leave a little too much, but he feels like he’s well on his way. Give him a few more rounds and he thinks he’ll hit that mark straight on, especially if Mustang won’t leave his bloody mouth alone. The more he touches it, the more Havoc feels he needs to drink. And the more he drinks, the more Mustang drinks, because even a couple of beers after work is enough to spark that competitive streak between them. And the more Mustang drinks, the sloppier he gets, and the sloppier he gets, the more he rubs at the liquid that he sloshes onto his mouth, the more he licks at his increasingly chafed lips, and the more he tries to suck the stray drops of beer from the fingertips of his gloves. When he does that, Havoc feels a little dizzy and downs most of his pint in a single gulp.
Havoc’s not so drunk that he doesn’t recognize the vicious cycle, but he’s way too far gone to conceive a plan to get out of it. So he orders another drink instead.
The bartender, a handsome young man who was catching the eye of every girl in the place until Mustang walked in, looks mildly concerned when Havoc nudges his glass back toward the far side of the bar top, but says nothing. Next round, Havoc knows, he’ll start in with the “maybe you’ve had enough, man” bullshit. Round after that, he might argue a bit before pulling the tap, and two more after that he’ll probably be insisting Havoc get himself a cab home before he sends the better part of all those rounds back up over the expensive polished mahogany.
He won’t try it with Mustang, though. He’s a little too close to those startling Pyrotex gloves to attempt to send Mustang packing, no mater how drunk the Colonel gets. Havoc knows this well from previous experiences, some of which had ended with him carrying a near comatose Mustang home, tucking him into bed, and beating off like he’s fucking fourteen again in Mustang’s bathroom before staggering his way home alone.
Across the bar, the piano man strikes up a happy little chord progression—da-dah, da-dah, da-dah!— and the woman who’s singing tonight clears her throat to introduce her next vocal styling. She’s an older lady, probably forties, but her age looks good on her, and Havoc usually comes in when he knows it’s her night to sing. She has a way of taking in long, sharp breaths when she’s belting out the latest tune that makes her tits swell up and outward in a damn intriguing fashion under the satin gown she wears that’s expensive in one way and cheap in another. In fact, she does it right now, and Havoc watches, but Mustang’s caught his bottom lip in his teeth to pluck at a bit of chapped skin and all of a sudden Havoc doesn’t give a tin shit about the lady’s considerable bust, a fact so upsetting that he takes another huge gulp of suds and chokes a little.
“Hey, pal, maybe you should slow down—” the barkeep starts, but the lady’s brassy yet pleasant voice starts in and drowns him out.
“My friend named Dan once took a man up in an air balloon…”
“Must be almost to… time to be done,” Mustang murmurs, recognizing the song before Havoc does. A traditional last-call-type song, and it gives Havoc a brief feeling of respite. Once they leave the night air will cool him off a bit. God, please, once they leave the night air will cool him off a bit.
“It dipped and flipped, and flipped and dipped, from morn to afternoon…”
“Guess so.” Havoc replies. “Sir,” he adds, quick and clipped, after it’s really too late, and Mustang chuckles and orders a last round for them. Whiskey, this time, and please make it a double. The bartender looks a bit shocked, but he pours the drinks, and Havoc’s heart sinks a little. Mixing whiskey on top of beer is never a good idea, especially not for Mustang, and especially not when he’s trying to match Havoc drink for drink. Havoc knows right then that tonight he’ll end up helping Mustang out of his uniform and into bed and his fingers shake a little. Thank whatever gods there might or might not be that he’s drunk; if he weren’t, the sharp, greedy spike of anticipation might have knocked him flat. And that scares him a little. He wishes he had a cigarette, but he’s long since finished his pack.
“The man, he paled, and mopped his brow, when the flier cried;
‘What else can I show you now?’
And the friend replied…”
“You… could…” Mustang whispers, catching Havoc off guard with a warm gust of beery breath from lips entirely too close to his ear. There’s a moment of bright hope. It’s immediately squelched with a wave of disappointment so strong he almost wants to whimper a little bit into his cup when he realizes Mustang’s merely singing along, as the lady goes into the chorus.
“Show me the way to go home!
I’m tired and I wanna go to bed!
Well, I had a little drink about an hour ago
And it went right to my head…”
Her voice is so loud it carries above the sudden raucous jostle of the bar patrons joining in, with off-key voices and much banging of cups and stomping of feet, but Havoc barely hears it. Mustang is more whispering than singing, but it’s enough for Havoc to hear a surprisingly sweet baritone under the gruffness of breath and too much drink. The sound makes Havoc need a cigarette.
“Wherever I may roam,
By land or sea or foam,
You can always find me singin’ this song:
Show me the way to go home!”
Mustang laughs and tilts a bit on his barstool, obviously pleased with the choice of music. The lady goes into the second verse, about how her friend Dan once took a man out to the baseball game, and Mustang hums along. He scrubs a hand back through his hair, casual and dreamy, and Havoc feels a sudden tingle at his crotch that he’d dearly like to write off as just the beer starting to work its way to his bladder.
“My mother… my foster mother… she used to sing this… sing this song,” Mustang explains through a sudden fit of giggly hiccups. He reaches for his drink and nearly tumbles to the floor. Havoc catches him, steadies him, and attempts to balance him back on his stool, but Mustang doesn’t let himself be balanced. He leans farther sideways, his shoulder pressing into Havoc’s chest, his head settling at Havoc’s jaw, and Havoc’s sudden intake of breath is full of the smell of Mustang’s hair.
Definitely not his bladder. Oh, damn. He really needs a cigarette now.
Fuck, he’s so drunk he can hardly think but he’s already half hard. He doesn’t want to let his arms tangle around Mustang’s chest, but his reactions won’t let Mustang slide to the floor, and before he can stop himself he’s holding him tight enough to feel him pull in a deep breath to belt out the chorus.
“Show me the way to go home!
I’m tired and I wanna go to bed!”
That’s the problem, Havoc thinks in sudden desperation. He really wants to go to bed, even more than he wants a cigarette. He just doesn’t want to go alone, and the thrum of Mustang’s heart under his arm feels amazing and his voice is gruff and sweet all at once and his hair smells like musky shampoo and sweat and Havoc’s cock is a fucking railspike and he’s never wanted to go to bed this badly in his life.
“Well, I had a little drink about an hour ago
And it went right to my head…”
Which is funny, because Havoc can barely feel the drinks at all just right at this second. Oh, this is bad. This is really bad…
“Take me home, Lieutenant.”
He almost misses the order; he’s too far gone trying to smother his insistent desire, and he thinks Mustang is still singing along. It takes him half a measure of piano to realize the measure of Mustang’s words is off.
“Didn’t you hear me, Lieutenant?”
He did, he does, and he feels himself nod and try to stand. But his balance is off and he slips. When he grabs at the side of the bar top to steady himself the unfinished glasses of whiskey go flying. The bar tumbles and spins. The floor tilts. Liquor drips down Mustang’s cheek.
“Shit, Sir, I’m sorry—”
Mustang claps a hand over Havoc’s mouth. The cloth has absorbed the taste of beer and Mustang’s tongue, and Havoc feels suddenly faint. The tingling drunken numbness returns to his limbs and he shakes a little. Mustang’s leg slides closer to him as he scrambles to stand.
If he doesn’t get a cigarette soon, he thinks he’s going to rupture apart from the inside out. If Mustang doesn’t move his leg, he thinks he’s going to either come in his pants or start to cry with how unfair this all is. If he can’t get a hold on his emotions, he knows he’s going to roll over onto Mustang and kiss him, right here on the floor in front of everyone.
So he leaps up and bolts for the door.
He weaves out of the bar, through the throng of singing drunkards as fast as he can, leaving Mustang behind. Well, he assumes he’s leaving him behind. He’s a little afraid to turn and check. He actually thinks for a minute he’s going to escape with some semblance of dignity intact, when he suddenly stumbles on the exposed roots of the scrubby little tree planted just outside the front entrance and almost falls. He manages to catch hold of the grimy trunk and leans against it, catching his balance. Closes his eyes, willing the world to stop spinning long enough for him to remember which way he should walk to reach his apartment.
“Havoc?”
Mustang’s voice startles him into looking up. That starts the world reeling again, and gradually the hazy shapes turn solid and he sees Mustang, drunk, beautiful, barely standing, and definitely staring.
“Why did you run?”
From inside the bar, the chorus drifts out toward them, echoing in the thin alleyway. It seems even louder now than it did in the bar, a hundred people bellowing out “show me the way to go home” along with the singer, completely burying her voice. Havoc never wants to hear this song again as long as he lives.
“I want to go home,” Havoc manages, and his ears burn at how desperate it sounds.
Mustang keeps staring. Havoc can’t move. The piano plinks out a bawdy ragtime jangle, gearing up to the last verse, which is always the favorite; Miss Fitzsimons went in swimmin’ on an early summer morn, took a dip, heard a rip, knew her suit was torn…
“I want to go home,” Havoc says again. He puts his hand over his face. “I can’t do this. Please, just let me go home…” To his shock, he feels Mustang take hold of his wrist.
“Promise me you won’t run away again.” Mustang says.
The world suddenly seems both enormous and achingly small, and Havoc’s body swims with vertigo as he tries to place himself in it. Mustang steps closer. He moves Havoc’s hand away and looks at his eyes.
“Do you promise?” Oh, his breath is so warm.
“Yes. Yes, Sir.”
The kiss, when it happens, lasts through than the final verse of the song. As the crowd gears up for the final, loudest, most off-key and boisterous chorus, Havoc tastes the fire of whiskey, the pungent tang of beer, the coppery hint of blood where Mustang has rubbed his lips raw, and a hint of something else he can’t quite place but relishes all the same. A weird electric twinge goes through his face as stubble brushes stubble. He grinds himself against Mustang’s body and feels hot hardness. It’s five blocks to Mustang’s apartment, which is five blocks too many.
Inside the bar, the final notes linger. Outside, arms locked about each other’s shoulders, they show each other the way to stumble home.
Author:
raja815Character/Fandom: Jean Havoc/Roy Mustang. Fullmetal Alchemist.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2403
Warnings: Drunkenness.
Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist is © Hiromu Arakawa. I will make no capitol benefit from this.
Author's Notes: Written for
5drunkfics for the prompt "Confessions." I actually wrote this last year, and just now dragged it up from my WIP folder and edited it to post. (I'm trying to clean out the WIPs this week, so expect a lot of older fics to get finished and posted.) Heavily reliant on the traditional drinking song "Show Me the Way to Go Home." I had to call my dad to find out what the verses were, since he's the only person I've ever heard use them (couldn't even find them on the internet,) and I then had to alter them a bit to make them work in the FMA universe.Lieutenant Havoc’s distorted reflection swims back up to him from the polished mahogany of the bar top, the swirls of mirrored blond made all the hazier by the rounds of drinks he’s already finished. Mingled snatches of conversation and the plink of the piano in the corner mix with the slosh of liquid as the bartender draws another beer from the tap nearest him. In response he swirls the dregs in his glass and motions for a refill. There’s a deep gulp from beside him, then the squeak of a stifled hiccup, and he looks over to see Colonel Mustang wiping foam from his mouth. The Pyrotex glove his commander still wears grates across his upper lip, reddening his skin. Havoc’s skin reddens too, but for a different reason.
He looks down into his fresh beer and knows he’s shot right past tipsy, which was as far as he intended to go when he’d followed Mustang into the pub after work. Knows he’s shot past drunk, too, and probably even past plastered and hammered. He’s not quite reached what Heymans used to call the ‘triple p’ (the three ‘p’s being, in order, to puke, pass out, and piss yourself) back when they were new recruits enjoying their leave a little too much, but he feels like he’s well on his way. Give him a few more rounds and he thinks he’ll hit that mark straight on, especially if Mustang won’t leave his bloody mouth alone. The more he touches it, the more Havoc feels he needs to drink. And the more he drinks, the more Mustang drinks, because even a couple of beers after work is enough to spark that competitive streak between them. And the more Mustang drinks, the sloppier he gets, and the sloppier he gets, the more he rubs at the liquid that he sloshes onto his mouth, the more he licks at his increasingly chafed lips, and the more he tries to suck the stray drops of beer from the fingertips of his gloves. When he does that, Havoc feels a little dizzy and downs most of his pint in a single gulp.
Havoc’s not so drunk that he doesn’t recognize the vicious cycle, but he’s way too far gone to conceive a plan to get out of it. So he orders another drink instead.
The bartender, a handsome young man who was catching the eye of every girl in the place until Mustang walked in, looks mildly concerned when Havoc nudges his glass back toward the far side of the bar top, but says nothing. Next round, Havoc knows, he’ll start in with the “maybe you’ve had enough, man” bullshit. Round after that, he might argue a bit before pulling the tap, and two more after that he’ll probably be insisting Havoc get himself a cab home before he sends the better part of all those rounds back up over the expensive polished mahogany.
He won’t try it with Mustang, though. He’s a little too close to those startling Pyrotex gloves to attempt to send Mustang packing, no mater how drunk the Colonel gets. Havoc knows this well from previous experiences, some of which had ended with him carrying a near comatose Mustang home, tucking him into bed, and beating off like he’s fucking fourteen again in Mustang’s bathroom before staggering his way home alone.
Across the bar, the piano man strikes up a happy little chord progression—da-dah, da-dah, da-dah!— and the woman who’s singing tonight clears her throat to introduce her next vocal styling. She’s an older lady, probably forties, but her age looks good on her, and Havoc usually comes in when he knows it’s her night to sing. She has a way of taking in long, sharp breaths when she’s belting out the latest tune that makes her tits swell up and outward in a damn intriguing fashion under the satin gown she wears that’s expensive in one way and cheap in another. In fact, she does it right now, and Havoc watches, but Mustang’s caught his bottom lip in his teeth to pluck at a bit of chapped skin and all of a sudden Havoc doesn’t give a tin shit about the lady’s considerable bust, a fact so upsetting that he takes another huge gulp of suds and chokes a little.
“Hey, pal, maybe you should slow down—” the barkeep starts, but the lady’s brassy yet pleasant voice starts in and drowns him out.
“My friend named Dan once took a man up in an air balloon…”
“Must be almost to… time to be done,” Mustang murmurs, recognizing the song before Havoc does. A traditional last-call-type song, and it gives Havoc a brief feeling of respite. Once they leave the night air will cool him off a bit. God, please, once they leave the night air will cool him off a bit.
“It dipped and flipped, and flipped and dipped, from morn to afternoon…”
“Guess so.” Havoc replies. “Sir,” he adds, quick and clipped, after it’s really too late, and Mustang chuckles and orders a last round for them. Whiskey, this time, and please make it a double. The bartender looks a bit shocked, but he pours the drinks, and Havoc’s heart sinks a little. Mixing whiskey on top of beer is never a good idea, especially not for Mustang, and especially not when he’s trying to match Havoc drink for drink. Havoc knows right then that tonight he’ll end up helping Mustang out of his uniform and into bed and his fingers shake a little. Thank whatever gods there might or might not be that he’s drunk; if he weren’t, the sharp, greedy spike of anticipation might have knocked him flat. And that scares him a little. He wishes he had a cigarette, but he’s long since finished his pack.
“The man, he paled, and mopped his brow, when the flier cried;
‘What else can I show you now?’
And the friend replied…”
“You… could…” Mustang whispers, catching Havoc off guard with a warm gust of beery breath from lips entirely too close to his ear. There’s a moment of bright hope. It’s immediately squelched with a wave of disappointment so strong he almost wants to whimper a little bit into his cup when he realizes Mustang’s merely singing along, as the lady goes into the chorus.
“Show me the way to go home!
I’m tired and I wanna go to bed!
Well, I had a little drink about an hour ago
And it went right to my head…”
Her voice is so loud it carries above the sudden raucous jostle of the bar patrons joining in, with off-key voices and much banging of cups and stomping of feet, but Havoc barely hears it. Mustang is more whispering than singing, but it’s enough for Havoc to hear a surprisingly sweet baritone under the gruffness of breath and too much drink. The sound makes Havoc need a cigarette.
“Wherever I may roam,
By land or sea or foam,
You can always find me singin’ this song:
Show me the way to go home!”
Mustang laughs and tilts a bit on his barstool, obviously pleased with the choice of music. The lady goes into the second verse, about how her friend Dan once took a man out to the baseball game, and Mustang hums along. He scrubs a hand back through his hair, casual and dreamy, and Havoc feels a sudden tingle at his crotch that he’d dearly like to write off as just the beer starting to work its way to his bladder.
“My mother… my foster mother… she used to sing this… sing this song,” Mustang explains through a sudden fit of giggly hiccups. He reaches for his drink and nearly tumbles to the floor. Havoc catches him, steadies him, and attempts to balance him back on his stool, but Mustang doesn’t let himself be balanced. He leans farther sideways, his shoulder pressing into Havoc’s chest, his head settling at Havoc’s jaw, and Havoc’s sudden intake of breath is full of the smell of Mustang’s hair.
Definitely not his bladder. Oh, damn. He really needs a cigarette now.
Fuck, he’s so drunk he can hardly think but he’s already half hard. He doesn’t want to let his arms tangle around Mustang’s chest, but his reactions won’t let Mustang slide to the floor, and before he can stop himself he’s holding him tight enough to feel him pull in a deep breath to belt out the chorus.
“Show me the way to go home!
I’m tired and I wanna go to bed!”
That’s the problem, Havoc thinks in sudden desperation. He really wants to go to bed, even more than he wants a cigarette. He just doesn’t want to go alone, and the thrum of Mustang’s heart under his arm feels amazing and his voice is gruff and sweet all at once and his hair smells like musky shampoo and sweat and Havoc’s cock is a fucking railspike and he’s never wanted to go to bed this badly in his life.
“Well, I had a little drink about an hour ago
And it went right to my head…”
Which is funny, because Havoc can barely feel the drinks at all just right at this second. Oh, this is bad. This is really bad…
“Take me home, Lieutenant.”
He almost misses the order; he’s too far gone trying to smother his insistent desire, and he thinks Mustang is still singing along. It takes him half a measure of piano to realize the measure of Mustang’s words is off.
“Didn’t you hear me, Lieutenant?”
He did, he does, and he feels himself nod and try to stand. But his balance is off and he slips. When he grabs at the side of the bar top to steady himself the unfinished glasses of whiskey go flying. The bar tumbles and spins. The floor tilts. Liquor drips down Mustang’s cheek.
“Shit, Sir, I’m sorry—”
Mustang claps a hand over Havoc’s mouth. The cloth has absorbed the taste of beer and Mustang’s tongue, and Havoc feels suddenly faint. The tingling drunken numbness returns to his limbs and he shakes a little. Mustang’s leg slides closer to him as he scrambles to stand.
If he doesn’t get a cigarette soon, he thinks he’s going to rupture apart from the inside out. If Mustang doesn’t move his leg, he thinks he’s going to either come in his pants or start to cry with how unfair this all is. If he can’t get a hold on his emotions, he knows he’s going to roll over onto Mustang and kiss him, right here on the floor in front of everyone.
So he leaps up and bolts for the door.
He weaves out of the bar, through the throng of singing drunkards as fast as he can, leaving Mustang behind. Well, he assumes he’s leaving him behind. He’s a little afraid to turn and check. He actually thinks for a minute he’s going to escape with some semblance of dignity intact, when he suddenly stumbles on the exposed roots of the scrubby little tree planted just outside the front entrance and almost falls. He manages to catch hold of the grimy trunk and leans against it, catching his balance. Closes his eyes, willing the world to stop spinning long enough for him to remember which way he should walk to reach his apartment.
“Havoc?”
Mustang’s voice startles him into looking up. That starts the world reeling again, and gradually the hazy shapes turn solid and he sees Mustang, drunk, beautiful, barely standing, and definitely staring.
“Why did you run?”
From inside the bar, the chorus drifts out toward them, echoing in the thin alleyway. It seems even louder now than it did in the bar, a hundred people bellowing out “show me the way to go home” along with the singer, completely burying her voice. Havoc never wants to hear this song again as long as he lives.
“I want to go home,” Havoc manages, and his ears burn at how desperate it sounds.
Mustang keeps staring. Havoc can’t move. The piano plinks out a bawdy ragtime jangle, gearing up to the last verse, which is always the favorite; Miss Fitzsimons went in swimmin’ on an early summer morn, took a dip, heard a rip, knew her suit was torn…
“I want to go home,” Havoc says again. He puts his hand over his face. “I can’t do this. Please, just let me go home…” To his shock, he feels Mustang take hold of his wrist.
“Promise me you won’t run away again.” Mustang says.
The world suddenly seems both enormous and achingly small, and Havoc’s body swims with vertigo as he tries to place himself in it. Mustang steps closer. He moves Havoc’s hand away and looks at his eyes.
“Do you promise?” Oh, his breath is so warm.
“Yes. Yes, Sir.”
The kiss, when it happens, lasts through than the final verse of the song. As the crowd gears up for the final, loudest, most off-key and boisterous chorus, Havoc tastes the fire of whiskey, the pungent tang of beer, the coppery hint of blood where Mustang has rubbed his lips raw, and a hint of something else he can’t quite place but relishes all the same. A weird electric twinge goes through his face as stubble brushes stubble. He grinds himself against Mustang’s body and feels hot hardness. It’s five blocks to Mustang’s apartment, which is five blocks too many.
Inside the bar, the final notes linger. Outside, arms locked about each other’s shoulders, they show each other the way to stumble home.
