Disclaimer: I don't own Inu-Yasha or Full Metal Alchemist. Would this even be up here if I did?

A/N: I wrote this for the 30 Angsts community on livejournal. I thought since I was putting it up there I should putit up here as well.

Fandom: Crossover (Fullmetal Alchemist / Inu-Yasha)
Title: Scarlet Night, Crimson Dawn
Author/Artist: Night's Fang
Theme(s): (include the # number and full theme): #20A Violence, War
Pairing/Characters: Roy Mustang / Kagome Higurashi
Rating: PG-13 (A bit Dark)
Disclaimer/claimer: I specifically do not own the characters. I do own the plot-line and poem though.
Summary: No matter how much time passes. He is still a solider and he'll always be haunted by ghosts of war. So it's natural for him to wake up screaming. She can only silently watch in muted horror.

Scarlet Night, Crimson Dawn.

It's been ages since she's gotten a break from collecting jewel shards, chasing Naraku, playing mother to Shippo, and being Kikiyo's shadow. (She knows shes that, and not Inu-Yasha's lover as much as she'd like to believe it)

Therefore she can correctly assume that it's been an era since she's last gotten a chance to meet him. Since she's crossed through that large Gate to his/their world on the other side and buried her face in his chest breathing in his musky charred soothing scent. And it has. And all this time she knows he's been managing alone without anyone to care for him. (The foolish man. Doesn't he know better than that from past experiences? she thinks wondering what destroyed household appliance has to be replaced this time)

He's probably locked himself away from everyone again succumbing to reliving his past amongst endless glasses of whiskey, while she was away. Or perhaps being playing happy-go-lucky playboy, to forget the pain. (Or most probably both considering the stale scent of whiskey, and ladies perfumes the house seems to reek of.) All the while letting himself drown in lonliness. (Stupid solider pride)

The man is far too stubborn to ask for help, she muses as she sits by his bedside. Places a cool washcloth over his sweaty forehead, smoothes out messy raven locks, lightly traces his scarred blind eye, returns to holding his cold sweaty plam in her own hands. All the while she wonders which ghost of his past haunts him tonight, as she coos a gentle lullaby to him in her soft voice, like a mother would to her child. (Which is ironic in every sense of the word, she thinks tiredly, since it should be the other way around. She is younger, much, much more younger, than him. She could be his daughter.)

She wonders who (or what) haunts him tonight.

Is it the Ishval wars where he was called in to so cruelly and brutally help anhilate a peaceful race? (Does he see tanned desert worn skin and Philosophers Stone red eyes? she wonders)

Or is it the aftermath of icy tombstones marking grave piles in lonely desert sand?

Is it his old sub-ordinates that were the closest thing to family he had? (Are the faces of Havoc, Fury, Breda, Falman, and Armstrong eyeless, gaunt accusing faces smiling wickedly as rats run over their mangled flesh? Or perhaps they're all alive, happy, picnicking in a grassy meadow while watches yearningly from a world of grey?)

Are they blank gold and silver eyes on broken bodies of the boys (probably surrogate sons to him and he never wished for them to know) that plague his mind? (Edward would surely laugh at it if he knew. Fullmetal always loved torturing him. Al would probably look sadly at the man who's now whimpering in his sleep like a child, silver optics clouded with their usual muted warmth.)

Are they the accusing sapphire eyes and sharp insulting words that cut deeper than sharp yet rusty knives (and hurt more than stabs to the heart) of someone whose family he has stolen twice that fill his head endlessly? (He can't believe that Winry has indeed forgiven him)

Or is it her that encompasses his mind?

Do russet brown eyes going wide (pupils dilating into blankness), long sun kissed silky golden locks unfurling and solwly staining red (dripping down the strans, coagulating, hardening into lumps), elvin features of a woman (goddess/angel/warrior) twisting into a pained grimace, and a graceful fall onto him while her life seeps away as seconds pass by while can do nothing (absolutely nothing) replay in his head over and over again?

Or perhaps the woman is replaced by a young girl? (A child of ten, who's barely begun to live) Are russet brown eyes are a chocolate hue? (Ever dimming, struggling to hold on to life) Are the sun-kissed golden locks are replaced by silky onyx night? (Matted with blood, begging for something. Life? Death? She can't remember) Maybe he isn't so powerless like before but still has failed to protect her? (She's alive again, but something isn't right. She knows it. Maybe it's the feeling of incompletion. Or the feeling of having something that isn't hers to begin with. That her soul isn't hers anymore. Or the faint fading scar on pale unblemished skin which looks horrifyingly familiar to the Orobourus)

Whatever the Dreams (Nightmares) are she will never know. She can only assume as she changes the washcloth on his sweaty forehead, smoothes out messy raven locks, lightly traces his scarred blind eye, returns to holding his cold sweaty plam in her own hands, and continues her soothing lullaby. All the while he'll scream silently in his bleak world full of grey mist, black earth, and red seas, mouth full of dust, and eyes crying tears of blood. And she'll watch over him pondering as dawn creeps up upon them.

Scarlet Nights of wars fought (violence, anguish, despair, blood, marred flesh, gaunt faces, unmarked graves and cold lonely empty houses) will always haunt her mentor (father, guide, saviour, Flame Alchemist and so much more) Roy Mustang. And until he can learn to look past that, she knows he cannot (will never) see the hope the fiery Crimson Dawn will bring.

But then again that's what she Kagome Higurashi (his little inferno, The Phoenix Alchemist) by his side for so long for.

No matter how long it takes, she'll do it.

One day she'll pull him out of his Scarlet Night, and show him the Crimson Dawn.

He's waking now, and she breathes a sigh of relief.

The End.

A/N: Yeah, yeah, I know it's a bit weird, and stuff. But that's how my mind works. So yeah leave a review. I'll accept flames as well.