Havoc stared at the cracked sidewalk under his nose. He couldn't really explain it but those little bits of cracked cement were fascinating.
"…nant!"
Why were his ears ringing so much?
The man shook his head in an attempt to clear the haze and found himself focusing instead on a pair of wide eyes, golden irises staring intently at him. Really, he'd never seen eyes that colour before. Ever.
"….voc! Havoc!"
The man blinked a couple of times as the sounds came rushing back.
"Hey! Are you with me?" Edward gave the older man a jerking shake by the shoulder while he snapped the fingers of his left hand in front of his face.
"Yeah," he said, coughing the dust out of his throat, "I'm alright." He shook his head, loosing a cloud of finer dust from his hair and sat up. Ed leaned back to give him space. The teen was crouched on his heels, staring at Havoc with concern. His red coat was dusted with fine powdery debris, but overall, he didn't look any worse for wear.
A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk around them. Havoc saw people in their night clothes, dusty and shaken but otherwise okay. A woman gave him a nervous smile, relieved that he was okay but the attention of the crowd was drawn across the street.
Havoc noticed, with a small amount of confusion, that Ed, who was crouched more or less in his face, had an eerie orange halo around his head. The teen's normally buttery golden hair was now a deep bronze, muddied somewhat by dust. When Ed leaned back, Havoc finally saw what the crowd was staring at.
The hotel was on fire.
Thick black smoke poured from the gaping holes of second storey windows. The glass, he realized, had been completely obliterated by the blast. Shattered glass, twisted metal and brick dust blanketed the street.
"You sure?" Ed was asking him, trying to keep the man's focus on him, looking him in the eyes as if he could tell whether or not Havoc was lying.
"Holy shit," was his intelligent response.
This seemed to appease Ed's worry a little. His head snapped to the right as a man came rushing into the small circle around them. "The firemen are on their way," he told Ed. The teen nodded once and, with another concerned glance at Havoc, rose to his feet. The citizens around him towered above his head but Havoc watched, with no small amount of amazement, as Ed took command.
And people listened.
"Stay back," he called to them, and the crowd shuffled further back onto the sidewalk, clearing the road. He issued quick commands left and right.
Havoc was mesmerized.
He was well aware that, technically, Ed outranked him. This had never bothered him the way it bothered some of the other soldiers in his position. Roy trusted Ed's capability as a State Alchemist and Havoc trusted Roy's judgement. But he'd be lying to himself if he said he hadn't doubted Edward Elric, State Alchemist at the age of twelve, could command such authority. That was when they first met.
The boy had qualities that, with a bit of training and loads more experience, could make him an exceptional leader. In a way, the young alchemist reminded him of the Colonel, though he would never say that to either of them.
In times of crisis, like now, those qualities shined above the belligerence, the cocky attitude and the flamboyance. Ed was in his element and he took control easily while the rest of them were still standing with their mouths open.
Havoc shook himself. He was a soldier too and, unlike his much younger teammate, he'd actually seen war. He felt a little like he was embarrassing the Colonel just sitting on the curb staring while Fullmetal handled the situation.
He rose to his feet smoothly and dusted himself off before catching up with Ed in two quick strides.
"Oh, good!" replied the teen when their eyes met, obviously relieved that Havoc was back in action and focused. "Lieutenant, control the crowd until the police and fire crew get here, make sure no one gets too close. Gather the injured in one place for the paramedics," he ordered clearly and without a hint of panic. Again, Havoc was impressed.
"Yes, Sir!" he replied automatically and Ed paused for a second as they looked at each other. Havoc wasn't wrong. As far as chain of command goes, in this situation Ed was the highest ranking officer. The teen said nothing, realizing this as well and also noting that, for once, the address was not made in a joking, or mocking, manner.
"Right," he said, recovering quickly, "Well, uh, alright then. I'm going in."
The blond was halfway across the street when the statement sank in and Havoc made a surprised start. "You're what?" He caught up to the young alchemist and put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.
"You can't go in there!" he said, coughing through the smoke that hung thick over the street. One glance at the building told him it was still a raging inferno. "Are you insane?"
Ed shrugged out of the man's grip. "I have to, there could still be people in there!"
"That's the firemen's job! You'll kill yourself," argued Havoc.
Ed looked at the hotel then back at Havoc with a serious expression. "I know what I'm doing," he said forcefully. His amber eyes burned with their own inner fire, daring Havoc to try and stop him but his tone was asking one thing of the older man. Trust me.
Before Havoc could protest further, Ed reached the sidewalk on the other side pulling a handkerchief from Lord knew where, covered his face with it and ducked in through the hotel's main entrance.
"It's official," said Havoc out loud, letting his hand drop to his side. "the kid's suicidal." Was he surprised? Not really. He just hoped nothing happened to him or Mustang would kill him.
Ed noticed right away that there was more smoke than fire. Overall, once inside, he thought the emergency looked much worse than it really was. In fact, there was no fire at all on the main floor and he followed the smoke to its source, winding his way up the familiar wide central staircase to the second storey and to the left. He checked into hotel rooms as he went and kept his eye out for any stragglers but saw no one.
He stayed low, below the smoke and kept his mouth and nose covered. As he made his way along, it was obvious where the source of the problem was. A room three quarters of the way down the long narrow hallway was spilling smoke and flames through its charred opening, where a door used to hang. The very same door was bent and twisted below a mass of cracks in the plaster of the opposite wall.
Ed didn't need to see the number on the door to know which room this was. His heart raced a little faster. This was his room.
Someone had tried to kill him.
"Almost there." Havoc helped a woman who had sprained her ankle leaving the hotel over to the lit interior of a shop the owner had generously offered. Others sat on the floor being tended to by an older woman who claimed to be a retired nurse. Most were coughing, but not seriously injured.
He wished he was wearing his uniform. The military blue was a sign of authority and though he didn't seem to have any trouble commanding the situation outside, he was getting tired of introducing himself.
"Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc," he said as an introduction to an off-duty police officer who had approached him. The man was middle aged, wore a worn leather jacket and smelled strongly of cigar. He'd been having a drink at a nearby pub and was drawn by the commotion. "Emergency response teams are on their way." He could hear the sirens approaching already.
"Any deaths?" asked the other man in an undertone, sensitive to the presence of civilians.
Havoc frowned, looking back at the hotel. Smoke was still pouring from the upper windows. He worried for Edward. "No way of knowing yet," he said.
The other man nodded, also watching the building. "Is there anything we can do until the fire response gets here?" It seemed more like an open question but Havoc answered anyway.
"We have an alchemist on it."
The other man scoffed. "An alchemist? Unless he's the bloody Flame Alchemist, what's an alchemist going to do?"
"Well he's no Flame Alchemist," Havoc grinned crookedly at the irony of this statement, "but Fullmetal is quite capable, I assure you."
The man looked at him sharply. "Fullmetal's here?"
The grin fell a little from the Lieutenant's face at the sudden change in the other man's tone. "Yeah," he said carefully, "this is where he stays when he's in town. Hey, I didn't quite catch your name, Officer…"
But the man didn't answer. He stared at the burning building with a hard but otherwise unreadable expression.
Havoc frowned. The man was about to say something just as two firetrucks and other emergency vehicles pulled up with their sirens blaring and lights flashing. The men went quickly to work.
The other officer backed away slowly in the commotion. Havoc thought he looked a little pale, but that could have simply been the effects of the coloured lights from the trucks and cars. "I, uh," he started, then cleared his throat and continued with much more confidence. "Right, now that the emergency response is here, I'll head down to the station. Good work out here, Lieutenant," he said as the fire chief approached them. The new man nodded to the officer, who nodded back in a friendly manner. They obviously knew each other.
"Are you Second Lieutenant Havoc?" asked the Fire Chief.
Obviously they had been told that Havoc was handling the situation, even though he really hadn't done anything but keep order in the crowd of people who had evacuated the building or otherwise just come to watch.
As he spoke with the fire chief, Havoc kept an eye on the nameless officer until the man disappeared in the crowd. Their conversation had made him uneasy and he wanted to talk to Roy. This involved Ed somehow. The Colonel had warned the kid to be careful. And now the hotel where he was staying was on fire. Something was happening and he didn't like it.
He turned his eyes on the hotel as the fire chief walked away, giving instructions to his men.
"Come on, Ed. Where are you?"
A/N:
1) This chapter gave me hard time. It was originally much longer but it got to be so long that I decided to chop in into two chapters, hence this much shorter chapter. But hey, the good news is that the next chapter is nearly complete already so you can expect an update much sooner!
2)I tried not make Havoc too useless. He is, after all, on team Mustang so he's got to be good for something right?
3)Thank you for being so patient! Things to look forward to: Ed attempts fire alchemy and gets accused of witchcraft and Havoc gets an insight into what Ed might have done with his life if he wasn't working for Roy.
~Misuto