Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Sex, Substances, Sin, Salvation ❯ III - D - Bad Habits - Quatre's - Cigarettes ( Chapter 19 )

“Sex, Substances, Sin, Salvation”

How these 4 s-words are intertwined with one another

By Masamune Reforged

WhenShootingStarsFall.com

Disclaimer: Don't own any of the Gundam characters, they are the property of Bandai, Sunrise or someone else, but not me. I use them for no-profit whatsoever, but for entertainment's gain.

Warnings: Yaoi (including graphic lemon, multiple pairings, but 1x2 and 3x4 primarily) cursing, drug use, violence, angst, insanity, cameos, AU, lunacy, racism, all the bad shit you'd expect in real life. Some of the good as well.

 

Part D in “In the Concrete Jungle”, Page III in the s4 arc.

“Bad Habits - Quatre's - Cigarettes

Quatre's POV

 

It is time for a cigarette.

 

-When's it not?-

 

No, it really is time for a cigarette because I just got out of a two hour meeting and it's lunchtime.

 

I walk out into the bitter February cold. I tap twice at the top of the pack, just to make sure the tobacco is packed down and will burn well. The wind blows out my first match, and my second. I frown, put my back against the wintry gusts, bend down slightly, and use myself as a shield to block it. The tobacco sparks and catches. I chuck the match. It lands next to countless other cigarette stubs. The wind carries it past a nearby trash can and into the street.

 

Or it's just after lunch, or any other meal.

 

Something about having a smoke after eating is just so pleasant. I know they say that the smoke kills your taste buds, but that's garbage. I love the taste of a cigarette right after a meal. It helps me digest. It gives you time to think about the conversation or the proposal or whatever was discussed or read up on over the meal.

 

Or it's after leaving a movie theater or some other non-smoking building.

 

I rush outside, sometimes without my jacket. It's raining. Whatever, I vow to ignore it. I didn't really feel the need for a smoke, but it's just that now I can finally have one. I can't tell you how much those anti-smoking activists piss me off. Who are they to impose their ideals on my way of life? I take in a defiant drag, exhaling rebelliously. A woman scowls at me as the wind blows the smoke past her child's nostrils. Come on, one puff of second-hand won't kill them.

 

Or it's the early morning and I'm hungover.

 

My head hurts. My stomach is queasy. I need something familiar, something soothing. A morning jack is the doctor's orders for both. I may even get lightheaded, like when I was first starting, because I haven't had anything to eat and the nicotine goes straight to my head. Sometimes I just lay in bed, letting the ash fall onto the downy comforters. At night I scowl upon finding a burned hole in the sheets. The maids should know to replace those, or at least sew them up.

 

Or it's late at night and I'm drunk.

 

I laugh so much and get so distracted that I hardly even smoke the cigarette at all. Then I light another, determined to really smoke it this time. But then J.P. comes over with some booze or some coke and before I know it I'm even drunker and all I have is a pillar of ash burned down all the way through the filter. I dole out jacks to my friends that have run out like I'm Santa Claus during the holidays.

 

Or it's late at night and I'm sober, but stressed out from crunching numbers and reading earnings reports.

 

I go out to the balcony and look out over the city. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the whole world, or like a king surveying his fiefdom. I fall into fantasy, thinking about a gorgeous, but straight, hunk I was introduced to at the country club. I amuse myself with child-like fancy. The cigarette ends, the work is still unfinished. I'm not a king, I've got no knight. I'm not a renegade killer bee, I'm just a regular worker bee. I light another smoke and go back to my dreaming.

 

Or it's just something else that's stressing me out.

 

They're talking about promoting Dorothy Catalonia.

 

//She's better than you//

 

I practice blowing smoke rings. Nobody is as good at blowing rings as I am.

 

There's an e-mail going around the office, a parody off of Richie Rich with my face on it.

 

//Some say the resemblance is more than skin deep//

 

I ground the fallen ash into the ground. I smash the embers against the marble wall.

 

Nobody seems to think I'm attractive.

 

//You're too short. You're too wimpy. You're too fucking blonde[1]//

 

I focus on the fire, the way it burns so fiercely and brightly in the darkness, the light that it casts.

 

I hold in my breath and wonder, who will ever love me?

 

//Nobody will ever love you//

 

I try to only feel the heat of the smoke burning me up from the inside.

 

Or it's that everyone else is going outside to have a smoke.

 

Everyone is laughing and having fun. People are comparing their brands. I'm cold and shivering outside, but everyone is out here too. It's too smoky in here and my eyes are burning, but it's the place to be on a Thursday night. I don't really want the cigarette, but I want to feel like I belong.

 

Or it's someone else asking me to have a smoke with them.

 

Someone asks me if they can try one. I grant the favor, intent on collecting from it later. They marvel at how good my brand is. They appreciate me, even if its not for the company. I want to impress this person. I can become cool by hanging out with this person.

 

Or it's right before a big night and I want to smoke my “lucky”.

 

I pull it out, the fabled jack which brings good fortune. I make a silent prayer.

 

Please make me successful. Please make me beautiful. Please make me happy. Please make me loved.

 

I place my hopes, my dreams, my insecurities, my wishes into that one last cigarette. I light it on fire like I'm sending up a tiny little flare to heaven.

 

Please.

 

Or sometimes it's just the last cigarette left in the pack and the monkey on my back just won't take no for an answer.

 

-end Quatre's POV

-end “Bad Habits - Quatre's - Cigarettes” Part D in Page III of the Sex, Substances, Sin, Salvation arc.

 

Next: “Report to Captain Zechs Merquise: Gotham Harbor Raid”

 

WhenShootingStarsFall.com

 

Notes:

[1] This is ripped directly from Fight Club. I love that movie. The scene is where `Space Monkey' is trying to find something to shout at `Blondie' to get him to quit, and all he can think of is, “And you! You're too fucking.... .... BLONDE!” You may have noticed the inverse of another line from the book, “You're not a normal worker bee, you're a renegade killer bee.”