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

"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."

"Chemical peace," says Hawkeye, squinting at him in vaguely slow astonishment.

"I take it it didn't catch on?"

"Well, with over ninety-nine percent of the population, it worked entirely too well. It completely eliminated all aggressive behavior."

This time he does drink, swallowing half of what's left in his glass.

"And then it eliminated everything else. Thirty million people stopped trying to stay alive. And lay down where they stood, and died."

"Damn," Hawkeye says, low and hushed. "Thirty-- Damn."

It hasn't been so long since the last great war. Thirty million dead is a number that Hawkeye can get his head around.

That doesn't make it any less horrifying.

"--Wait," he says, eyes narrowing sharply, and he points at Simon with his glass. "Wait. What about the other percent, the one percent? They lived?"

"One-tenth of one percent."

The waitrat's returned with the second bottle. Simon reaches for it, sets it on the table. Doesn't pour, not yet.

"Had the opposite reaction."

Hawkeye shoots him an unsteady look. "What's the opposite reaction to dying? Or was it living?

"Is this a riddle? I've never been good at riddles."

"The opposite reaction," he says, "to losing all aggression and finally all volition."

Not meeting Hawkeye's gaze.

"They lost everything but."

He drains his glass.

"They attacked people."

Hawkeye's mouth tips grimly.

"Wonderful. Love this universe."

"They attack mindlessly. Savagely. Beyond savagely."

Simon's gaze is on the table, and there's a whiteness around his lips.

"I think," he says slowly, "I'm going to regret asking this question, but what d's -- what does, 'beyond savagely' mean?"

His throat works for a moment, and then he says flatly: "Indiscriminate rape, dismemberment, elaborate mutilation, and cannibalism."

He reaches for the bottle, and adds with a twist to his mouth, "Not necessarily in that order."

"Hell," Hawkeye says, very quietly.

The neck of the bottle rattles briefly against the edge of the glass, but none of the liquor spills.

"Yes."

"Hell," he says again.

"It -- they attack often?

"Not that it really matters. It sounds like -- once would be enough."

When Simon's finished, Hawkeye is taking that bottle back.