John didn't look up at Neil as he carefully put the glasses in the sink. "Where you making a point?"

Neil took the bottle from the table and drank from it, the clear liquid vanishing down his throat with the slow bob of his Adam's apple. He set the bottle back between them, next to the ever-present box of cornflakes and sighed. "It's like our job, John. We observe. We treat the wounded. We don't get involved."

"You're screwing around with the translator."

"We're not screwing."

"Yet."

Neil sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "She's married. Got a kid. She's happy, John."

"We're just talking. Talking about life and her husband and what a shit country this is and what a shit assignment we've got, Neil. Don't paint me with the same brush you're tarring your own arse with."

"Yeah." Neil took the bottle again and took another long drink before leaning forward and planting it in front of John. "But I've seen the way you look at her."

"Yeah? And how's that, Neil? The same way you look at Minka?"

"This isn't about me." Neil slammed his fist down onto the table, knocking the cornflakes box over and scattering them across the table and floor. "This is about you, fucking up your life. You want to fuck around, that's fine. You want to get laid in this god-forsaken place, I'll help you to the whorehouse. But you do not fuck around with a married woman, because you don't fuck around, John. You're falling in goddamned fucking love with her, and the only person you're going to hurt is yourself."

"You don't think what you're doing is going to hurt someone?"

Neil grabbed the bottle and threw it across the room, a shower of glass and vodka raining onto the floor. "This is not about me." He scrubbed his hand over his face and sighed, shaking his head. "What I do, John? Who I am? It's different from you. It's different for you. I can get laid and get fucked and fuck up. You can't. And you don't give a fuck that I'm cheating or might be cheating, you're just pissed because I can do it, and you can't."

"You think I want to be like you?" John's cool voice broke slightly as he raised his dark eyes to Neil's. "You think I want to plant my prick in every pretty girl that comes along, not giving a shit about what I've left behind?"

"I think you want to be able not to care that she's got a husband and a kid. You want to think that she's just another hot woman who wants a taste of you. But you can't. You can't get past your fucked up morals and just fuck her."

"Just forget the sanctity of marriage like you do?"

"I'm not fucking married!" Neil got to his feet and paced the small space between the table and the sink. "You don't give a shit about the sanctity of marriage, John, and you don't really give a shit about morals either, because if you did, you wouldn't sit by and tell me what our fucking orders are when there are women and children and fucking babies in the line of fire. You're just too fucking afraid to do anything, so you sit there like her pretty little lapdog and sniff at her hands for whatever crumbs you think you might actually get."

"You," John swallowed hard, the façade of his control broken. "You don't know anything."

"I know enough," Neil sneered. "You want it and you can't have it so you pine for it, like it makes you some sort of hero. Well, here's a fucking newsflash, John. We're not heroes. Heroes actually save people. Heroes accomplish things. Heroes fight. We're just a bunch of ineffective police men put here for show so the rest of the world can think someone's doing something about a bunch of senseless slaughter. But you know what, John? We're not doing shit."

"Don't you think I know that?" John's quiet snapped and he slapped the fallen box of cornflakes across the table, sending a spray of them all over the room. "Don't you think I…" He broke off, his jaw clenched, his teeth grinding. "We're just talking. We're friends."

"You tell yourself whatever you need to to make it through the night, John." Neil shouldered the bag that was beside the door and shook his head. "Just so long as you know it's a lie."