AN: another tumblr prompt. thank you shadows-of-1832!

"you're better than this" / nighttime

The sand billowed around the soldier's ankles as they walked through the cold night air. The wind blew the course substance into his eyes, but Major Mustang barely flinched. It was what he deserved, he supposed. He blinked to rid the grit from his eyes but made no effort to ease the affair with his hands.

"Sir?" a voice called to him quietly. In the quiet outskirts of camp, it carried the distance between them. Roy cursed internally, not ready to face the woman who had entrusted her secrets to him, only for Roy to use to cause the destruction before him. He had vowed to help the people, not murder the innocents.

Yet, you're still doing it aren't you? Bastard.

"Sir," Hawkeye admonished, her tone disapproving at his late-night wander through camp. "What are you doing up at this hour?"

"Couldn't sleep," he replied, voice gruff. He continued to blink away the grit, but it didn't want to budge. "What are you doing up, Private?" he retorted, needing to shift the focus away from himself. He was in no mood or frame of mind to discuss his wellbeing at the moment.

Hawkeye was quiet for a moment. "My unit just returned from patrol."

That was when he finally met her eyes. They looked as haunted as he felt, and his heart clenched in his chest. He never wanted this for her. She deserved better. Look where his naive and foolish comments had gotten them both. Stuck in this hell hole, murdering innocent people who didn't deserve it. The least he could do was meet her eyes as she spoke to him. He would remember that look in her eyes, the horrified expression on her face. They would haunt him for the rest of his life, just like this war.

She had killed again tonight, he knew it. There was a terrified spark in her eyes, one that made him want to wrap her in his arms and protect her from the horrors of the war he had dragged her into.

Although she looked terrified, there was no look asking him to comfort her. She bore her sins, like he did. They both felt like they didn't deserve each other's comfort but craved it, nonetheless.

"We, uh…" Hawkeye coughed as she stumbled over her words, an uncharacteristic trait. Roy felt surprise and remorse fill his chest. Surprise at the unlikely behaviour, and remorse because he knew it was this place that was causing it. He had seen more than one soldier succumb to the mental torture this war pushed on them. Major Armstrong had been publicly demoted and deployed back to East City that morning. "We, uh…" Riza tried again more successfully. "We were stationed in a residential area tonight."

Roy felt his heart stop. From her words he knew exactly what she meant. She had killed families, children, torn them apart, gotten up close and personal with their deaths. For him he could at least hide around a corner as he murdered them. A blessing that wasn't really a blessing at all. After all, their screams found him no matter where he stood. He was a coward, plain and simple. Hawkeye was stronger than him to do what she did. She always had been.

He blinked as her face crumpled, a hand raising to cover her face. Roy watched as Hawkeye's shoulders curved in and shook as she cried. Quiet gasps reached him in the night, and something kept him rooted to the spot. He theorised it was the shock at seeing Riza Hawkeye cry for the first time.

You're better than this, Roy. You caused this. Don't let her suffer for your sins too.

Unable to hold back, and thanks to the nudge in his mind, he approached Riza with hurried strides, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, muffling her sobs in his dusty, dirty uniform. In the cold desert air, Riza's sobs carried up into the night sky, blanketing over Roy's very soul and constricting it painfully.