(A/N: I tend to second-guess myself when I put out chapters more quickly than usual, wondering if there's not something I'll want to go back a change later. Oh well, I guess we'll see...)

.

There is an old military adage which predates the weapons, methods, means, and ends of modern warfare, and yet is still quite apt:

For want of a nail a horseshoe was lost, for want of a horseshoe a horse was lost, for want of a horse a rider was lost, for want of a rider a message was lost, for want of a message a treaty was lost, for want of a treaty a country was lost, for want of a country a king lost his head.

It was Envy's job to mind the whole spectrum, everything from horseshoes to kings. It was enough to keep one busy. As Wrath never tired of pointing out, one did not run a country by neglecting the details.

At that point in time Envy seldom had cause to intervene, but every once in a while it stepped in to smoothly alter some small event in favor of Father's agenda, either concerning Ishbal or in general. It watched and waited most of the time, learning by observation the humans of significance better than their closest friends, and the mechanisms of the country better than those who perpetuated them. It was never impressed by what it saw.

When night fell, the world was a different place. Envy both loved the dark for its freedom from humanity, and yet resented the exile from the world of light. It wasn't enough to stalk the darkness, when humans ruled while the sun was in the sky. Envy would have reversed the scenario. Father ought to rule beneath the sun, which itself was like his mirror-image. Let humans carry on their petty lives in darkness, hiding and skulking. They weren't becoming of illumination.

Previously, night was when Envy gathered subjects for the lab. In the absence of researchers, however, subjects would have been superfluous. Father decided to more or less suspend Lab Five activities until they had a steady source of Ishbalans to sacrifice. In the meantime, Marcoh, Kimblee, and Tucker were relieved of their duties therein, which was a source of great disappointment to the latter.

"What about making me a State Alchemist?" Tucker said, when Envy informed him that the lab was being shut down for the time being. "You promised."

He looked so betrayed. Envy grit its teeth, longing to just kill him. In light of recent bloodshed, however, it exercised restraint. They might need this one again.

"Earn it yourself if you want it so bad." Envy snapped, and thought no more of it until much later.

.

In the meantime, this meant that Envy had free time primarily at night. And, consequently, Kimblee developed a tendency to fall asleep at work. He had never been one to let his personal life interfere with his job, but then again, there had never been much personal life to speak of before. The few, brief relationships he'd had since living in Central had been with women who matched his mask – neat, comfortably middle-class, socially responsible. Boring. He scheduled and compartmentalized them as neatly as one might manage regular trips to the dentist.

It was for this reason, perhaps, that women didn't stick around long. Disinterest can seem like chivalry for a while, and one can be a very good listener when they're compelled to share nothing of their own thoughts or opinions. He was a blank slate that was easy to project on. When a woman realized this and left, he didn't much mind. Another one just like her would be along sooner or later.

Envy, on the other hand, was a demon, an incubus, slipping through his window with the night air, into his bed. He would wake as though to just another layer of dream, for in that sublime rush of infatuation they were so in tune with one another it was almost as though they were sharing one mind and one flesh.

In was partially deceptive, for they often neglected to talk as they had when Envy was asexual. In intimacy they were so close he could sometimes barely tell their two bodies apart, and yet he often knew nothing of what Envy had been doing up until that moment, day after day. At times it was as though Envy existed only as a nocturnal reverie, to rouse him at who-knows-what-hour and vanish before morning even considered showing her face. A dream more vivid than reality.

This might not have bothered most men, but he wasn't most men. As an alchemist, he considered it best to be a creature of intellect before flesh, and he had chosen Envy accordingly: a mind to be the companion of his own, as well as a nice body to play with. He didn't like having to choose one over the other.

.

"You should stay." Kimblee said, catching Envy around the waist as he tried to slip away, before either of them had even caught their breath.

"You should sleep."

"Stay and sleep with me."

"Yeah, I've heard that one before." Envy couldn't suppress a smirk.

"Did you kill anyone today?"

"I heard you passed out on your desk Tuesday."

"It doesn't matter. It's not as though I'm doing anything important."

"It does matter. We can't let it seem like this is getting in the way –"

"Of duty to Father. I know."

"You tend to forget."

"I'm not the only one." Was he expected to say no, when he woke up with Envy's arms already around him, mouth and hands already on him, all over him?

"I'm not the one falling asleep on the job."

"It isn't my fault I'm –"

Human.

There was an unpleasant silence.

"It isn't my fault I'm not."

"That's not the problem."

Envy didn't say anything. What could he say, of an existence of watching, unseen – or if seen than not recognized or known. It was a one of the motives behind the sin's fierce bloodlust, the moment when it took a life was usually the only time Envy was identified for who and what it truly was. And then to be seen, known, touched, admired…it went beyond pleasure, it was the only time which Envy felt real. The void of nothingness inside was not gone or forgotten, but quieted. It was a sea in which Envy had always drowned, but now there was something to cling to, something to keep its head above the water, if only just.

He would not have put this to words, even if he could have found the right ones. All it meant was that Envy was as powerless to keep away as Kimblee was to turn Envy away.

If, however, they had both been human, it wouldn't have been a problem.

"We'll have time, eventually." Envy said. "All the time in the world. In an infinite number of worlds. We'll have time to get sick of each other."

"The only time that exists is now. Even eternity is measured in seconds."

"How do you know all this?" Envy said, in an odd mixture of exasperation and tenderness. "You're still just a child, really…"

"One doesn't have to live a long time to understand how time works." He looked at Envy, both beseeching and commanding. "Stay."

Envy could not find the will to oppose him, and wasn't sure he wanted to in the first place. Maybe they would regret it later…but later did not yet exist. Both of them had always lived for the future in their own ways, Envy motivated by a distinct goal, Kimblee with the simple belief that whatever he was going to had to be better than where he had come from. For the first time, there was peace to be found in the fragile equilibrium of now. It was living, and it was a first for both of them.

.

(A/N: Gr, I hate it when my characters are happier than I am. WTF? YOUR JOB IS TO SUFFER! DX And I haven't forgotten about Greed. Kimblee and Envy need to habituate to being a couple before a third person gets involved. You'll just have to wait for it ;) Thanks for reading!)