Author's Notes: Originally published 11/24/04. Edited as of 05/31/09 to fix minor errors and rewrite a few sentences.

Absently Present

by Melfice

There were a lot of things in life, Edward Elric had found, that you simply did not go admitting to the entire world. For instance, he didn't admit to all the occupants of the breakfast table (see: Al) that he had decided to wear black boxers that day, as opposed to the other choice of red which had been equally appealing. He didn't go around admitting that sometimes he thought he might have split ends or that the blue ball point pen sitting on Hawkeye's desk could be propelled perfectly across the room at high velocity, if one needed to hit someone who was being both frustrating and annoying.

Just as no one admitted that they might have an incurable fear of brightly colored teas, he didn't feel it was his responsibility - or anyone's business - for him to go around admitting things either. Even if maybe he had been asked a couple of times (it was actually twelve, but he certainly wasn't counting – not at all) about the situation and what exactly it all meant, none of that was plausible cause for him to go around spouting information that surely wasn't for anyone else's business.

In fact, he mused somewhat bitterly, there wasn't even anything to admit at all. If other people were thinking up far fetched ideas and starting rumors that were really just that - rumors - then that was their business. He didn't really need anyone poking into his personal life, asking him embarrassing questions about how exactly his hair tie had ended up on the light fixture - the very ornate one on the ceiling - and why are you blushing so much, Edward?

No, there really weren't any answers to the questions he was continuously plagued with. After all, things were completely normal on his side, right? He didn't see what they were all so nosy about anyway; didn't any of the people in that office have work they needed to be doing?

Not tired enough to sleep, but not awake enough to care, Ed glanced over at the digital clock on the night stand. It was blaring '2:34' back at him in bold, red neon, as if he were eighty four instead of eighteen and needed the numbers to be three times their normal size so he could see them. Even as he closed his eyes and sighed, the numbers remained etched onto the back of his eyelids.

He hated alarm clocks.

If it weren't for the fact that he was warm and comfortable, he might have gotten out of bed and tossed it from the window. He could imagine the chaos that would cause come morning, when the alarm usually went off and woke everyone within seventy two feet with the distinct reminder that it was a work day. It would probably be around the ten-ish area or so when he'd awake, to the wonderful feeling of being strangled, as his ploy for the destruction of the alarm clock was discovered.

"Mmm."

Sometimes he'd fall asleep in the library, or on the couch, and there would be no alarms. Morning would come, pleasantly go by, and he'd get some damned fine sleep. In fact, Ed slept in a lot of places that weren't his own room; sometimes you just never knew when and where exhaustion would hit. The best thing about falling asleep somewhere else was the whole lack of alarm business, but then he'd discovered Mustang's home and had been witness to a whole new kind of horror.

Roy Mustang's alarm did not beep, it did not wail, it fucking screamed. It screamed until Ed's eyes were wide as saucers and his heart was jumping around in about thirty different directions trying to get out of his chest. It would then continue its horrid banshee cries until either a.) he grew frustrated and tackled it onto the ground or b.) the hand around his waist stretched over and hit the very convenient 'snooze' button that Ed never could seem to find.

The next few minutes of freedom from the ear piercing screech that would then commence would be particularly blissful, right up until seven minutes on the dot when the alarm would break into a panic again.

It was a routine he had discovered after the third week. Falling asleep, waking back up, staring at the clock like the evil being it was, falling back to sleep some minutes later, only to wake up again as the clock exacted its revenge. Some people had said that there was safety in routine and, for the most part, Ed was inclined to agree... except on this particular subject.

He was getting more used to it the more it happened and it was perhaps the silliest thing he could do. It would really only be a few more days, maybe a week (it might even happen in the morning) when this whole thing would finally come to an end. He'd wake up and realize just how absurd it had all really been, how funny he must've acted during all of it, and things would finally go back to normal.

Because that is exactly what Edward Elric did when something happened in his life that he didn't approve of. He would go into full fledged denial for several weeks, before eventually caving and just accepting what had been painfully obvious all along.

Denial was a lot harder than it seemed though. The man laying next to him, one arm snaked around his bare waist, made sure to confuse Ed as much as possible even while unconscious.

All it boiled down to, he'd decided, was that it was really just a passing thing. At least that's what he'd told Al, one particular evening when he'd come home wearing Mustang's clothes and spazzing uncontrollably about how much he hated the man. Alphonse, patient as always, had nodded knowingly throughout his feverish ramblings - even if they hadn't made much sense and why was he so upset about it all?

That's what brothers were for, right? Help each other out. He was quite certain that Al did more than his fair share, but that was his brother for you.

Still Al's advice for the situation had been helpful and certainly much better than his own frantic solutions, but there was a slight problem. All of the advice he'd been given had been a mixture of borderline romantic-soul-searching and do what you feel is right, Ed.

That was a particularly frightening thought to Edward. It was doing what had felt right that had landed him in this whole mess to begin with (and a few very helpful, suggestive glances from the Colonel) and he didn't want to make matters even worse. Just because something felt right didn't mean that it actually was, right?

"Mmm..."

The hand moved back somewhat, fingers resting against Ed's thigh instead. It briefly occurred to the young alchemist that his immediate thoughts should have been wrenching the offending fingers off of him and, not for the first time, he felt frustrated that those weren't his thoughts. Maybe about how nice he fit against the curve of Mustang's sleeping form, but not about causing the man bodily harm.

Which was entirely problematic, as it meant he liked the whole thing and that was certainly not happening. He did not like Roy Mustang - it simply wasn't an emotion that was possible for him to have towards the man. Absolute loathing, hatred, or fury maybe, but not anything that might have even drifted in the same direction as affection.

Edward Elric didn't have to admit a single thing to anyone and they could just make all of those assumptions, as it certainly didn't matter to him in the absolute slightest. Although he hated glaring and moving on, unable to say that maybe the hair tie had ended up on the light fixture because he'd been much too involved with cursing how complicated the Colonel's uniform was and maybe he hadn't given a damn about the stupid hair tie at the time.

Because that would've been admitting that he didn't care if anyone found out that there might be something more than the work, report, and go home, Fullmetal, you look like shit routine that they'd developed. Admitting something like that would've meant accepting the fact that there was something there and admitting that might have made him consider the fact that he'd been thinking there was more to the whole thing than undeniably mind-blowing sex.

He really didn't like the idea of admitting that there had sort of been more to it from the beginning, so he'd cleverly squashed such thoughts and sedated himself with the reassurance that it all couldn't possibly last.

Tomorrow made four weeks and Ed wondered briefly on asking the Colonel how long flings were supposed to last.

Because if this went on much longer, he was really going to have to consider things that certainly did not need considering because this was Roy Mustang he was thinking about and he did not like the man.

"Go to sleep, Edward."

"Yeah, yeah...."

Okay, maybe just a little.