01:おはよう「ohayou」

‘good morning’

Roy gave a gusty sigh.  He supposed that he should have had a little more patience, but tolerance for tomfoolery had never been one of the colonel’s strong points.  Besides, this was just ridiculous.  The nerve!  Imagine; a subordinate falling asleep in the middle of a lecture!?  Roy had been far from finished heckling when he noticed Edward was no longer listening.  Drumming his fingertips on the desktop, Roy leaned back in his chair and scowled.

Okay, so he’d sent the boy on a long mission and then demanded the report as soon as he’d come back.  So?  He was the superior officer, as it were.  Wasn’t that his job? 

He rested his chin in his palm and sighed again.  He had been looking forward to picking on Edward all morning…and now that his visions of goading grandeur had been shot down with Fullmetal’s spontaneous siesta, Roy was left full of jibes and with no one to aim them at.

Damn.  Now he was just bored.

Even so…he just didn’t have the heart to wake the poor kid up.

He got to his feet and put his hands on his hips, meandering over to the sofa where his subsidiary dozed, his sharp features arched in annoyance.

How rude, Fullmetal, he thought sourly. I still had more to scold you for…

Okay, okay, so maybe Roy had been feeling particularly fiendish on the day he assigned Edward the field report on an incident involving the town of Munaca—a tiny city just south of Dublith—in the middle of the summer.  But Fullmetal had deserved it.  He had put sugar in Roy’s coffee as a joke.  Sugar!  Roy hated sugar in his coffee, and that Edward had had the impudence to do something so unforgivable as to taint a sacred cup of joe with such syrupy blasphemy had left the colonel rather chafed.

Roy was as fond of mischief as the next man…but he drew the line at that.

Nobody messed with his coffee.

And so one good turn did, of course, deserve another.  If Edward was going to toy with coffee, Roy would play with fire.  Or at least heat.  And while a desert setting with two metal limbs was a little crueler than Roy was prone to…he’d been deprived of his caffeine that day and could surely be forgiven a little spite.  The Munaca report hadn’t been assigned yet, and Roy had been feeling vengeful.

But now that Edward had come back after a week and a half in Munaca, face and arms pink with sunburn and his face lined from heat-induced insomnia, Roy had to admit he felt a little remorseful. 

The boy had had ten days to heat up out of town while Roy had had the whole time to cool down back home, and now the situation looked a little different than it had all those days ago.  A little…well…guilty.  Roy wasn’t really as heartless as he assumed Edward entertained him to be…and he could still recall with rather vivid pangs of compunction the days of Ishbal when sleep was a luxury the young soldiers couldn’t afford.

So…he wasn’t quite certain he had the wickedness in him to jar the lad out of this nap.  He did feel a trifle at fault this time.

…but only a little.

After all, Edward had gone and made a mess of the mission anyhow; only an Elric would turn the town’s water supply to ice in a simple effort to cool the place down.  It had been a catastrophe!  Pipes hard burst!  Irrigation systems had been damaged!  The whole town was thrown into disarray!

…and all of the children of Munaca learned about the wonderfully simple magnificence of the snow cone.

Roy sighed again.  It seemed no matter what Edward did, no matter how much trouble he caused, he always managed to redeem himself.  After fixing the pipes and patching up the irrigation schematics, the little city was actually in better shape than before he’d gotten there.  But of course Roy certainly wasn’t going to let the little bugger know.

Where would the fun in that be?

He stood there a moment, just frowning down at the boy napping so carelessly on his sofa, and contemplated upending the vase from his desk directly onto his scruffy blond head.  But, no…that would damage the upholstery.

Then a sly grin slid across the colonel’s face.

No…he had a much better idea.  Much much better than dousing Edward…  An idea so simple…and yet so delightfully perfect. 

This was something he would be able to snigger about for weeks to come…

Edward’s golden eyes fluttered open, and he inhaled deeply, stretching his arms over his head and arching his back. 

Ahh, that had been a good nap.

He rolled his shoulders and turned to see what Al was up to.

He stopped dead in his tracks.  He blinked. 

Wait.  Something wasn’t quite right.  This wasn’t his bed…  And this wasn’t his room…

And…this wasn’t…his afghan…draped over his shoulders…

He swallowed hard as a single horrifying thought came to mind.

Oh shit!

He’d fallen asleep in Mustang’s office!? 

Great…just what he needed.  Now that smug bastard was never going to let him hear the end of it.  He had probably already doodled all over his face with marker and taken incriminating photos to show to everyone at the office.  Or worse!  He had just invited the whole squad in to point and laugh!!

He threw the afghan aside with a cry and leapt to his feet, dashing for the windows to see if he could make out markerlines on his reflection.

But he froze as he passed the colonel’s desk.

“Umu…?”

A nondescript mumble of confusion escaped the youth’s lips.  Roy grinned cheekily at him from his chair and lifted one dark eyebrow.

“’Morning, Fullmetal,” he said slowly.  “’Bout time you woke up.”

Edward blinked.

“What?”

Roy glanced at the clock on the wall, then sighed audibly with irritation.

“You must have napped for two hours,” the older man chided.  “You snore horridly, did you know that?”  He shook his head and kneaded his brow.  “I was beginning to think I was going to have to lock up with you still dead to the world on my office couch.”

He rustled about in the desk drawer, retrieving a few personal effects for the trip home.

Golden eyes narrowed dangerously.

“What are you plotting…?” he demanded, and Roy gave him an injured look as he got to his feet.

“Nothing,” he replied casually, standing up and waving one hand in the air.  “Quitting time.  Let’s go.  I’ve been ready to go home for half an hour, so if you’re all done napping on the military’s dime, I’d like to get out of here for today.”

Edward squinted dubiously as Roy rolled his shoulders and ambled past him.

“What did you do?” he challenged angrily.

Roy gestured for the boy to hurry up and get out of the office.

“Come on, I want to go home,” he griped, his brows knitting together in irritation.  “Stop badgering.  You napped.  I let you.  Let’s go.  I’ve got important dates with lovely young women to plan.”  His eyes narrowed impishly.  “Unless, of course, you need a…little…more sleep?”

“WHO ARE YOU SAYING IS SO SMALL HE COULD SLEEP IN A TEACUP??”

Roy chortled.

Edward glowered and grabbed his red jacket, throwing it over one arm.  He started for the door, then paused when he noticed the afghan he’d thrown to the floor.  He grumbled something indecipherable, snatched it up, folded it hastily, and hurled it back down onto the sofa.

“I know you must have done something,” the blond accused his superior as he seethed out the doorway and into the hall.  “There’s no way you let an opportunity like that slide.”

Roy glanced over his shoulder and gave a crafty smile, pulling the door shut behind him.

“Live in fear, Fullmetal,” he said with a mischievous chortle, and shoved his hands in his pockets, walking down the hall toward the lobby, leaving a very disgruntled and suspicious Edward to his thoughts.  Roy smirked and then added quietly to himself in closing, “It’s exactly where I want you…”