Soldier
[drabble challenge for Siriusjazz]
"I think I'll buy a farm in the east, when I retire," Havoc says around his cigarette.
Liza looks at him, narrow. Neither of them flinch when a bullet ricochetes against a brick corner. She launches herself from the wall, fires twice, and then plasters herself back against relative safety.
"Second Lieutenant," she says, "now is not the time to discuss retirement plans."
"No, think about it," he says. "It'd be great. I could sit on my porch and smoke all day, and all I'd have to shoot were birds that got too close to the corn."
From somewhere down the street, people are shouting. The alleyway is just wide enough to accommodate the two of them, if they stand shoulder-to-shoulder. Liza is hidden behind a stack of boxes; Havoc crouches behind a few old garbage cans.
They've been separated from Colonel Mustang for fifteen minutes now. Liza can feel each second ticking like heartbeats in her skin.
Normally, she would trust he could take care of himself--but it has rained recently in East City, and the air is heavy with the smell of damp. It is not impossible for him to create sparks in this weather, but it is significantly more difficult.
Liza's commander is a smart man, but also good at underestimating the odds. With his official transfer to Central so close at hand, everything must be carefully planned out, so that he will not have any tarnish upon his name.
It's not that Liza doesn't trust him to be careful: it's simply that she knows him well enough to realize he is thinking of other, closer things.
She reloads her gun. Havoc nibbles on the end of his cigarette, eyeing her. His own gun is held loosely at his side; he doesn't seem concerned at all. Liza frowns at him. He only raises an eyebrow back.
Gunfire spatters the wall; a fragment of brick zing past her face. Liza leans forward enough to fire once, then jerks back as a bullet whizzes dangerously close to her ear. Havoc still appears unconcerned, and rises to his feet, daring to light his cigarette. She resists the urge to grind her teeth, a bad habit that sometimes still lingers from childhood, and turns to him.
"Second Lieutenant Havoc," she says, "if you don't mind helping me--"
Abruptly, he turns towards her, flips up his gun, aims. There is a split second of shock, during which no human, however well-trained a soldier, can react.
Then he pulls the trigger, and the bullet flies past her. It makes a thick meaty sound, rather than anything sharp or shattering; Liza moves instinctively, and watches the body of the man behind her slump to the ground. When he collapses, his hand opens, and the knife within spills out.
He wears the uniform of a Blue Brigade sympathizer, and blood is spreading darkly across his shoulder and back. She thinks, surprised, that she did not realize he was quite so close.
Liza looks at him, then looks up at Havoc.
Havoc smirks at her, and lets his gun drop back to rest. "What?" he asks. "I pay attention too."
She is tempted to snap. Instead, she plucks the cigarette from him and grinds it sharply under her heel. When he scowls at her, she only shrugs.
"Cigarettes only make you that much shorter of breath," she says. "On three, we're going to run. If Colonel Mustang has any sense, he'll head back to headquarters--"
"But hell, knowing him, he probably went back to deal with them himself." Havoc gives the ruined cigarette a mournful look, and sighs. "Time to go save him again?"
Liza considers this, and offers him the smallest of smiles. "Exactly."
"On three, then, right?" He leans back against the wall, and she sees how his face shifts, changes: there is a soldier underneath that, she thinks.
She presses to her side as well, listening carefully. Men are grumbling beyond the mouth of the alleyway, and she checks her gun. There are just enough shots left, if he helps her. She looks to him, catches his eye, and nods.
"One--" He tenses, and she sees his hands tight on his gun. Now he is taking things seriously, she approves.
"--Two--" Liza draws in a deep breath, holds it, her foot beginning to slide.
"--THREE!"
--end--