yankeedoodle_dr | (no subject)

(no subject)

"Damn," says Hawkeye, "damn, damn, damn!"

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recognizes that he has not just stepped into the scrub room, that the piece of furniture he just threw his surgical cap down on wasn't the sink.

(He's in short-sleeved scrubs, red down his front and up his bare arms from the wrist to the elbow. He's moving slow and a little unsteady. His face is lined with the kind of exhaustion that only hits after the second, third, and fourth winds have come and gone.)

One bloody arm wrapped around himself, his head hanging: "Damn."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Even if it's true?"

It's a response he can understand, but ...

Hawkeye shrugs once.

"You know, it's funny; there's never a shortage of decisions to second-guess."

He's quiet for a moment, studying his glass again.

"The first time I lost a patient was just off a battlefield," he says, low and reflective. "In Yuna's world. I can't remember if I ever told you about it..."

"It's funny; I can't remember, either." It's said lightly, but the way that he finishes off his scotch is anything but flippant. "Refresh my memory."

While he refreshes his glass.

There are any number of places he could start.

What comes out is: "Yuna's world has religious strictures against higher technology. Including medical technology."

He takes a drink while working out where to go from there.

Hawkeye thinks, fuzzily, that he's heard this story before, now that he's hearing it. He isn't about to tell Simon to stop, though.

He gives a low hmm as he finishes topping off his glass, more of a quiet indication that he's listening than any sort of a question.

Simon's voice is flat and matter-of-fact. "Which meant not only that they didn't have certain instruments and medications, but that I couldn't even bring any along. Which, obviously --"

He stumbles on the word, and breaks off.

"I lost five," he resumes finally. "Two of them ... I think two of them I could have saved, with access to a real operating theatre."

Hawkeye watches him, miraculously steady.

He says, "You blame yourself?"

One corner of Simon's mouth tugs upward in something that can't really be called a smile.

"She asked me something very similar. A few days after."

"I'll bet she did."

Elbow on the table, glass perched precariously in hand.

Wry, and not nearly as glib as the aim, though he's trying: "I can't help but notice that that's not an answer to the question, though."

"That's just it."

Simon picks up his own glass, but doesn't drink yet.

"I went over it. Over and over. And I couldn't find anything I did wrong."

He waits, more patiently than a lot of people would give him credit for. He takes a drink; a long one.

He's listening, his eyes on Simon.

In unconscious echo, he takes a swallow of his own drink.

"So how do you blame yourself in a situation like that?"

"Well," he says, and it's wry. "I wouldn't blame somebody else."

Hawkeye holds himself to impossible standards.

The honesty is thanks to the scotch.

"I tried to blame her."

The scotch is responsible for honesty from more than one of them, it seems.

"It doesn't work. It's like ... blaming gravity."

"Or the air," Hawkeye says, helpful.

And maybe a little drunk.

But serious under it.

"Or vacuum," Simon agrees, blinking. "It's just there. Or not there. The absence of a thing. You can't blame the absence of a thing."

"Can't blame death, not supposed to blame ourselves -- the only thing left's the war."

Beat.

"I don't mind blaming things on the war."

Simon raises his glass, only slightly unsteadily. "To blaming the war."

"To blaming the war," Hawkeye agrees readily, and he clips Simon's glass with his with just a little too much force.

He drinks, and lowers the glass. "But blaming war doesn't work either. Of course."

The glass hits the tabletop with a small solid thunk.

"Because then people try to put a stop to it for good, and they only ever mean it for the best, and god only knows what they'll do next time."

"You know, putting a stop to war for good--" Hawkeye eyes him speculatively, tiredly. "Some people might think that was a good thing. Crazy, I know."

"Would you like to hear about what happened the last time people tried, in my world?"

Simon's starting to enunciate very carefully in an effort not to slur his words, but it's not that alone that brings a grim edge to his voice.

Immediately: "Well, when you put it that way--" Hawkeye's tone is caught halfway between sarcastic and flip, but there's no bite to it.

He reaches for the bottle. "No," he says, and a few drops of scotch puddle on the table as he finishes off the last of the bottle. "I think I probably wouldn't like to. But this is looking more and more like a -- like a two-bottle night," he sets the empty bottle down, picks up his brimming glass, and raises his other hand (without looking to see if there's actually a waitrat nearby), "so sure. I think you should tell it."

A waitrat chitters from behind him. Hawkeye finally lowers his hand. "Bartender, make it a double," he says over his shoulder, pointing at the empty bottle, and it shoots him a dubious look before bobbing its head and skittering off.

Hawkeye is oblivious to all of this, having never turned around.

"They called it the Pax," he says. "G-32 paxilon hydrochlorate. A chemical compound designed to be released into the air of a populated area, to dampen aggression. Make the people peaceable."

His glass is nearly empty. He doesn't lift it.

"They tested it on a colony world called Miranda. If it worked there, they were going to release it everywhere. No more aggression; no more war."