Gunsmoke
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Disclaimer: I don't own FMA. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT!
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The bomb shelter was cold and wet with the sweat of thirty military men all crammed into about twenty feet of space. It was war, and the tides were turning. It was, however, not in the military's favor. Six men had already died; one of which was in his company. But he didn't want to think about that right now. He had seen enough to know that his priorities should lay on the ones still alive. Like the one he was holding to his chest, trying to stop the blood, her blood, from spilling onto the broken cobblestones. It soaked through his gloves, staining the array, rendering it useless.
She looked oddly empty without her guns; they had been lost when she fell. Her breathing was shallow, but he could still feel a faint heartbeat flutter against him. He wondered what would happen when she woke up and found her house burned to the ground with her dog's broken body in the street. Riza Hawkeye loved Black Hayate more than she let on; this he knew more than he let on.
Even when she took a direct hit to the side, she staggered up and squeezed off six shots, all of them embedding themselves cleanly into the man who had shot her. "I'm fine," She said with obvious effort, each inhalation taking its toll upon her body. "I'm…fine." Then she collapsed against his shoulder.
Damn it; why wasn't he out there, fighting in the streets, protecting them? Why was he here, with wounded and bloody soldiers closing in on him from all sides? This was a fight they could not win, yet the battle went on.
Roy Mustang had learned not to be blindly optimistic. He had seen death; looked it in the eyes, known how easily it came. Dying was a realism that he had come to be too familiar with.
Roy Mustang was also an alchemist. He did not believe in God and his divine powers, knowing instead, that creation comes from science. Ironically, he was now praying to any higher powers not to let her die. He was destroying both of his strongest beliefs at once, but right now, Roy Mustang was beyond caring.
He buried his nose in her hair, what was once clean, neat blonde now matted with dirt, blood, and who knew what else. She smelled of gunsmoke, a scent he realized was now incredibly familiar to him. He had smelled it every day for the last seven years or so. It was different from the smell outside. The smell outside was war, blood, and death. It was something he wished, not for the first time, he had never been associated with, but fate didn't agree with him.
Then again, if he wasn't associated with those things, he might never have been associated with her.
He closed his eyes and prayed that they would both stay alive long enough for him to tell he appreciated the way she smelled.
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Fin
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Whoo! I just barely almost broke 500! (Dunno if that classifies as a ficlet, or what, but...) Of course, it will have been much more with this little Authoress's note, but whatever. This has got to be the fastest one-shot I've ever written; barely forty minutes of my time.
Love it? Hate it? I'll never know unless you review!