milliways_bar | (no subject)

Hawkeye is seated near him at the bar doing paperwork, her long, blonde hair severely clipped back. Her bearing screams military, from the straight-backed posture to the uncompromising gaze to the navy blue uniform with grey trim. She offers him a glance and picks up her coffee cup. "What denomination of money is that?"

"American dollars."

Cassidy is looking down, counting out a stack of singles, and folding them into a wad of twenty. It's then that he looks up, and is immediately struck by her appearance.

"Whoa, you're a rigid one, aren'tcha?"

Sorry, he has no filter.

Hawkeye stares at him, unblinking. "Rigid? I suppose so," she says, and does not sigh. "I've never heard of America. Or dollars. I'm from Amestris, and we have cenz."

Hey, at least she owns it.

"You've never heard of America? Well, I've never heard of Amestris, so we're even, then."

He smiles crookedly and offers a tattooed hand to shake. Actually a lot of him is tattooed, mostly his exposed forearms.

"Name's Cassidy."

She gladly shakes his hand, surreptitiously looking for alchemical arrays tattooed to his arms. "First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye. I'm assuming you don't have alchemists either?"

No alchemical arrays, just random stuff that Cassidy thought was cool at the time.

"Ah, nice to meet'cha, Lieutenant. Alchemists? No, no alchemists in my world, at least not that I know of. There might be? I dunno, I've not seen anything about 'em on the internet, but you never can say for sure what's out there these days, heh. Are you an alchemist?"

Hawkeye withdraws her hand. "Nice to meet you, too. I am not, but my commanding officer, Colonel Roy Mustang, is."

"Oh, okay, cool."

A pause.

"Wait, what is alchemy anyways? Isn't that like, some kinda magic chemistry or something?"

Hawkeye has a sip of coffee before explaining. "Alchemy deals with chemistry, but it's not magic. It's the process of transmuting one object or element into another through drawn, circular arrays. Sometimes alchemists tattoo transmutation circles on to their arms, which is what I was looking for on you."

"Right. I see," Cassidy says thoughtfully, not getting any of that.

"Nah, nonesuch of any o' that on me. I just went through a period of low impulse control, that's all." He grins, toothily, and turns back to counting out more $1 bills.

"So, what d'you use alchemy for?"

Killing people, is Hawkeye's first, unvoiced thought. Seeing as that's morbid and gives the wrong first impression, she decides against sharing that.

Hawkeye sets her coffee cup down and picks up her pen again. "Alchemy has many uses. Repairs, constructing things, and the neighboring country of Xing has mastered medical alchemy."

"Ohh, that's super handy indeed," he says, impressed. "Must be a nice civilization you got goin' if you can do that." He still thinks it's magic.

"What about you, then, you're in the military, you use it there, too?"

"Yes," Hawkeye says, her shoulders as stiff as ever. "There's a State Alchemist program. Alchemists who enlist in the military receive research grants and access to the national libraries."

"Right, okay, but I mean like, can you blow things up with alchemy?" he asks guilelessly. "Like, if it's chemistry, you can blow things up with chemistry well enough, so I was just thinkin' if you used alchemy as a weapon, too."

He stuffs a couple of wads of dollar bills into his jeans pockets and starts counting out the fives.

It's a good thing he's guileless, because otherwise Hawkeye would be leveling a very skeptical look at him. As it is, she's wary, though not a flicker of that shows up on her face, which is as neutral as ever. "Yes," she says quietly. "The Colonel is known as the Flame Alchemist. He specializes in blowing things up, as you say."

"Ooh, that sounds cool!" he enthuses.

Really, he just thinks it's fancy magic.

"Flame Alchemist, he's got a name an' everything. Hey, d'you want a drink or something?"

Cassidy's not the first person to idolize Mustang for blowing things up--and killing people. He earned the title "Hero of Ishval" for better or for worse. Still, Cassidy's enthusiasm takes Hawkeye aback. She holds up her mug, meeting his gaze. "I'm fine with coffee, thanks. Why are you wadding up your money in piles of twenty?"

Cassidy is very basic; blowing shit up is cool.

"Suit yerself," he says, laying down a fresh $20 bill on the bar for a bottle of whiskey, because he can, since he has cash.

"Strippers need tips." He jerks his thumb toward his door. "I came in from a strip club, y'see."

Rather than reacting to that declaration with a blush or discomfort, Hawkeye takes another neutral sip of coffee. Bar makes the drink just like Hawkeye likes it; she's never had a better cup. "There are clubs for strippers now?"

Cassidy uncaps the bottle of whiskey and takes a couple of swigs from it.

"Uh-- aye, sure there are," he says. "There's been strip clubs for decades. Why? What year is it for you? I mean, I dunno if that even matters, us bein' from completely different worlds."

"It's 1914, and I'm not from an Earth. I assume you are?" Hawkeye says, running her thumb along the handle of her coffee mug. Bar refills it without having been asked. "Thank you, Bar."

"I am," he says, after a slight, startled pause when she mentions the year. Cassidy was just a teenager in 1914. He rarely ever thinks about that.

"Wow, 1914, eh? I'm from 2016. What's everything like in your time an' place? I guess if you've met enough people here, chances are you'll already have heard about what Earth is like."

"That's a difficult question to answer," Hawkeye says, wrapping her hands around her coffee mug for warmth. "We haven't achieved flight yet. Nor do we have anything close to the internet or smartphones. We do have regular phones, and electricity, and elevators. Amestris is a military state governed by a useless parliment and a Fuhrer."

That all sounds reasonable to Cassidy for the time period, but then he raises an eyebrow at that last bit.

"Ah, you sure you want one o' those, then? A Fuhrer? In my day, nothin' good ever came from someone called a Fuhrer."

Hawkeye has to be careful here. She doesn't actually think that what she says in Milliways will get back to people on her world, but better safe than sorry. "The Fuhrer King is meant to be good for the people. He or she is the general of the army, and makes decisions which are meant to benefit the entire country. Fuhrers protect their subordinates so they can then protect people under them."

She sips her coffee pensively. "While it would be better if Amestris was a democracy, this governement is what we have to work with right now."

"Oh, they're a Fuhrer King, too, are they," he says, holding up his hands as if to step away from the subject, lest he get mouthy and opinionated. And he can get very mouthy and opinionated. "Welp, good luck with that! As long as you're not Germany, you'll probably be okay, but really, not my place to say. Different universes an' all."

Emcee is from Germany, and he, too, reacted poorly to hearing that Amestris is governed by a Fuhrer. Hawkeye watches Cassidy. "I'm assuming America is not a military state."

Cassidy utters a dry laugh. "No, not officially, but the answer might vary depending on who you ask," he says wryly, before taking another swig of whiskey. "It's a complicated country, with complicated people, is what I mean. I would never leave, though. I left me own country a long time ago with every intention of making America home, so that's where I'm gonna stay, no matter how batshit it gets."

Aren't all countries complicated? Hawkeye glances to her paperwork before turning her sharp-eyed gaze to him again. "Where did you flee from?"

"Ireland, an' I didn't flee, I just left," he replies a tad defensively.

Sure, he had no choice but to leave. But it was for the sake of his family. He couldn't ever let them know what he'd become.

"My apologies," Hawkeye says, watching him with an unblinking gaze. "What's Ireland like?"

That unblinking gaze is a little creepy. Like she's some kind of wind-up doll, with her shoulders so straight like that.

"It's beautiful," he says, with just a touch of nostalgia. "The coutryside's very green. 'S why it's called the Emerald Isle. Not really by actual Irish people, more like tourists an' poets, but still, they're not wrong regarding its greenness. I grew up in Dublin, a city by the eastern coast. It was a pretty rough, tough place to get by in, but though my family was poor we still did fine with what we had."

Hawkeye's eyes soften at the description. "I understand what it's like growing up like that. Ireland sounds wonderful."

She doesn't ask him why he left--his reasons are his own and he's under no obligation to share them. "Do you miss it?"

"Aye, a little, sometimes," he says with a shrug and another mouthful of whiskey. "But I wouldn't bother goin' back. Been away too long, nothing's gonna be the same."

He casually studies her for a moment (she's not the only one who reads people) before asking, "What about you, then, Lieutenant? You always lived in Amestris?"

"I have," Hawkeye says, stacking her paperwork into an even neater pile. "Amestris is temperate and green, except in the east, which is desert."

"You look like you were born into that uniform, y'know," he says. "You like bein' in the military?"

Hawkeye does not flinch. She doesn't even move, except for the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. "No. But there's someone I have to protect."

He was starting to wonder if he could ever ruffle her.

"Oh, aye? An' who would that be, then?"

Hawkeye's lips pull down subtly. "My superior officer. I am his bodyguard after all."

"Oh, the bloke who can do the fire thing an' blow stuff up," Cassidy says, his eyebrows raised for a moment, before they're drawn together in a questioning frown.

"Wait, why does he need a bodyguard when he can do the fire thing an' blow stuff up?"

"He's only human," Hawkeye says, her voice quiet. "He needs someone watching his back."

She's also been tasked to act as his conscience, and been ordered to shoot him in the back if he strays from the right path. That's not an aspect of her job she likes to think about.

"Oh, well, I guess everybody needs somebody lookin' out for 'em," he reasons.

"Anyways--"

He's about to take another drink from the whiskey bottle (it's about half empty, though he shows no signs of inebriation) when he pauses, tapping the side of it. "You sure you don't want something a bit stronger?"

Hawkeye considers this, tapping her pen against her lips. "I suppose one drink couldn't hurt. I am off-duty here," she says, and Bar provides a shot glass. "Thank you, Bar. And thank you, Cassidy."

"No problem," he says with a grin as he fills her shot glass to the rim. "You gotta live a little, eh?"

He raises the bottle for her to clink against.

"Cheers, Lieutenant."

Admiring the amber coloring of the liquid, Hawkeye carefully lifts the shot glass and taps it against his bottle with a quiet clink. "Cheers."

Bringing the glass to her nose, she inhales the scent of the whiskey. Then Hawkeye opens her mouth and takes a breath, before downing the shot. The alcohol coats her throat and burns all the way down. She coughs softly and sets the glass down on the bar. "Whew. That's decent whiskey."

Meanwhile, Cassidy is guzzling the liquor down as if it were water. He utters a belch, tapping his chest with a fist.

"It is, innit? Want another?"

"No, thank you. I probably shouldn't get tipsy," Hawkeye says, eyeing her empty glass. "But I appreciate the offer."

{ooc: Are we wrapping up? Thanks for the thread.}

"Suit yerself," he says amiably, and polishes off the rest of the whiskey, thumping the empty bottle down on the countertop. A waitrat scurries by and clears it away.

"Well, then, I'm off. Them g-strings ain't gonna wait for no man."

He pats his pockets to make sure all his money is there, then gives Hawkeye a casual mock salute.

"Nice meeting ya, Lieutenant. Don't work too hard!"

Ambling away, he opens his door. The dim glow of purple and blue lights comes through the doorway, along with the sound of raunchy rock music. Cassidy slips through, and shuts the door behind him.

Hawkeye doesn't know of any g-strings except those that belong to guitars or violins. Maybe Cassidy plays? She'll have to ask him next time.

The mock salute makes her inwardly bristle, but she offers him a brief smile as he leaves. "And you, Cassidy."