[fic] FMA: For Medicinal Purposes [Hawkeye]
I probably need to change that title. For two days now, I've been intending to write a Havoc fic relating to Hawkeye. This wasn't the idea--I want to do something from Havoc's POV and maybe *gasp* lighthearted--but something along the lines of the opening line has been stuck in my head all day, so this came out instead. This feels like a very different fic for me. I don't know. I blame McEwan's Atonement for this fic. I think I've met my ficcing quota for like the year.
For Medicinal Purposes
Sometimes when she walked unexpectedly through an invisible cloud carrying the scent of a cigarette, Hawkeye remembered Ishvar. It was the memory of the initial drag, the first inhalation of a newly lit stick, the smoke heavy in her nose and mouth and lungs, burning all the way down, followed by the pleasant sensation of the nicotine spreading like a gentle balm throughout her body. It was as sweet as it was bitter.
In principal, Hawkeye didn’t approve of smoking-she’d heard the labored wheezing of one too many habitual smokers and didn’t care to spend the money on a habit that would do that to her-but in Ishvar, she’d accepted them almost gratefully, leaning in close to a struck match, a lighter’s protectively cupped flame, or pressing the unlit end of her cigarette against the burning embers of a fellow soldier’s until she could feel the slow poison leaking into her system.
It had been a part of surviving.
They’d been hungry in the desert, starved for everything they didn’t have and everything they couldn’t. They hadn’t understood that rations were meant to be rationed themselves so that hunger grew in her like a yawning, aching abyss where her stomach used to be and the cold knowledge that they were days away from any base whirled dizzily through her mind right beneath the pounding of her temples.
When she dreamt about home, her dreams always included hot, endless meals. Awake in Ishvar, she learned the secret shame of standing silently by while others pillaged ransacked homes for anything resembling food. Sometimes she even let herself savor these spoils of war, guiltily pretending all the while she had no idea where it came from.
Then there were the cigarettes. Few enough soldiers had them that they were precious commodities, horded selfishly and regarded with envy. For a little while longer, cigarettes would stave off the hunger, the weariness, and sometimes even the truth of their situation. Hawkeye hated smoking them, but found herself unable to resist all the same, just like how she hated the war but could fall in love with the desert, so vast and untouched and ambivalent.
Taking those cigarettes was like staving off the suffering only to prolong its wrath later. But she relished those moments when a soldier would reach uncertainly into his pack of cigarettes and hesitantly offer her one from his treasured horde. When he would smile in a moment of understanding and camaraderie. When they would sit or stand side by side, sharing the same view, smoking their cares away as if they had all the time in the world.
It had helped assuage the hunger of her heart.
Now, years later, Hawkeye often noted the way Havoc smoked like a chimney. In her glance she even silently asked him what it was that he hungered for so much that he smoked so often and so absentmindedly, but when he offered her a cigarette when he caught her curious look, she never bothered to give an explanation when she said no. She couldn’t tell him that she didn’t hunger like that anymore. She didn’t think he would understand. Very few of them ever did.
For Medicinal Purposes
Sometimes when she walked unexpectedly through an invisible cloud carrying the scent of a cigarette, Hawkeye remembered Ishvar. It was the memory of the initial drag, the first inhalation of a newly lit stick, the smoke heavy in her nose and mouth and lungs, burning all the way down, followed by the pleasant sensation of the nicotine spreading like a gentle balm throughout her body. It was as sweet as it was bitter.
In principal, Hawkeye didn’t approve of smoking-she’d heard the labored wheezing of one too many habitual smokers and didn’t care to spend the money on a habit that would do that to her-but in Ishvar, she’d accepted them almost gratefully, leaning in close to a struck match, a lighter’s protectively cupped flame, or pressing the unlit end of her cigarette against the burning embers of a fellow soldier’s until she could feel the slow poison leaking into her system.
It had been a part of surviving.
They’d been hungry in the desert, starved for everything they didn’t have and everything they couldn’t. They hadn’t understood that rations were meant to be rationed themselves so that hunger grew in her like a yawning, aching abyss where her stomach used to be and the cold knowledge that they were days away from any base whirled dizzily through her mind right beneath the pounding of her temples.
When she dreamt about home, her dreams always included hot, endless meals. Awake in Ishvar, she learned the secret shame of standing silently by while others pillaged ransacked homes for anything resembling food. Sometimes she even let herself savor these spoils of war, guiltily pretending all the while she had no idea where it came from.
Then there were the cigarettes. Few enough soldiers had them that they were precious commodities, horded selfishly and regarded with envy. For a little while longer, cigarettes would stave off the hunger, the weariness, and sometimes even the truth of their situation. Hawkeye hated smoking them, but found herself unable to resist all the same, just like how she hated the war but could fall in love with the desert, so vast and untouched and ambivalent.
Taking those cigarettes was like staving off the suffering only to prolong its wrath later. But she relished those moments when a soldier would reach uncertainly into his pack of cigarettes and hesitantly offer her one from his treasured horde. When he would smile in a moment of understanding and camaraderie. When they would sit or stand side by side, sharing the same view, smoking their cares away as if they had all the time in the world.
It had helped assuage the hunger of her heart.
Now, years later, Hawkeye often noted the way Havoc smoked like a chimney. In her glance she even silently asked him what it was that he hungered for so much that he smoked so often and so absentmindedly, but when he offered her a cigarette when he caught her curious look, she never bothered to give an explanation when she said no. She couldn’t tell him that she didn’t hunger like that anymore. She didn’t think he would understand. Very few of them ever did.