A/N: Written as a prize for akaisekai on deviantART for winning 1st place in The-DA-Ranger-Group's Edward Elric Moving Moments contest.

He was going to do it.

Today was the day he would finally do it.

It had been a long time in the making, this most crucial of days. For Jean Havoc, it couldn't have come sooner. He'd been planning it for months, reading books, going to meetings, seeking advice from whoever he could, and now he was finally ready. He was going to do this.

A doctor he spoke to once compared it to a virus, one that spreads to the farthest corners of the body as long as you ignore or enable it. Havoc had been doing both for years, and now it was time to stop. He was going to stand tall, look that virus in the metaphorical eyes, and gave it the greatest possible smack down he possibly could. And then the whole world would know that he was not a man to mess with, he was not a man to give in to some stupid allegorical virus! He was going to do it. He was going to do it today.

Jean Havoc was going to quit smoking.

It was an average morning, the day he'd picked to begin his recovery. He'd spent it in the office alone, as everyone else had other things to do that day. The Colonel and Hawkeye was at the shooting range, and the rest were running odd jobs around HQ. Havoc was alone at his desk, flipping aimlessly through a book and every now and then letting his eyes stray to the full and unopened pack of his favorite brand cigarettes.

Or rather, his former favorite.

Yes, Havoc was very dedicated to his mission. So much so, he'd completed all his paperwork for today and tomorrow in an effort to keep his mind of the alluring taste of nicotine. Once that was done, he'd reorganized his desk and alphabetized everything in the drawers. Upon completing that, he went and did the same thing to everyone else's desks. Then he washed the windows, swept the carpet, took a walk around the entirety of the building, and eventually came to rest back at his workspace, with only two and a half hours having gone by.

He glanced at the clock, it's minute hand moving at an agonizingly slow pace. Where the hell was everyone? How much time could anyone need shooting at a target board? Havoc bit down hard on his lip, his fingers beginning to shake as he looked again at the clock. In the dead silence, he could hear the rhythmic ticking perfectly. Too perfectly. Every tick seemed to come slower, and grow louder. It was becoming like a baseball bat being taken to his head over and over and over and over and

WHERE THE HELL WAS EVERYONE?

"Goddammit," he muttered, leaning back heavily in his chair. "I would take any sort of distraction, I don't care what it is."

BAM

"Yo, Roy! You've gotta check out these pictures of Elicia I took yesterday!"

'…is it too late to take that back?'

Hughes stood in the doorway, his arm raised high and frozen as he slowly realized that nobody else was there. His stance became rigid, and then he simply let go of the pose and frowned in Havoc's direction.

"Hey, where is everybody?" he asked.

Havoc shrugged. "I don't know, they've been gone all day running errands or something."

Hughes pursed his lips and gave a low hum. "Well, that's a shame. I really wanted to talk to Roy… so what are you up to?"

Havoc's eye twitched involuntarily. He'd really been hoping Hughes wouldn't try to make chit-chat with him. Havoc knew all too well where that would inevitably lead. Still, it might be a good distraction, talking to Hughes for a minute or two. So long as they steered clear of anything dangerous.

Havoc groaned softly, pushing the palm of his hand into his eyes as it started to pound, an unwelcome effect of withdrawal.

"You alright?" Hughes asked, inching closer to the seated 2nd Lieutenant.

"Fine, fine," Havoc waved him off, moving to massage his forehead. "I decided to quit smoking, and my body is being a bitch about it."

The reaction was instantaneous.

"Really?" Hughes squealed and clapped his hands together like the hyperactive child he truly was inside. "That's wonderful!"

Quick as a flash, Hughes was across the room and baring down on Havoc, who was forced to back his chair up as much as possible to avoid getting a face full of happy Hughes.

"Thank goodness you made this decision while you're still young," he went on with star filled eyes. "Who knows? Maybe you'll even find a girlfriend once your breath doesn't smell like dirty smoke anymore!"

"Thanks for the encouragement," Havoc muttered flatly. He was thinking of all the ways he could get Hughes away from him without doing anything lethal or job threatening, when the weight of his superior officer's words sunk in.

He started imagining himself, standing on an empty field with a beautiful woman, looking deep into her eyes, her flawless white skin, her full, red lips that looked so succulent as he moved closer…

Havoc's eyes glazed over as he adopted a goofy expression that could rival even that of Hughes himself.

"You really think I'll have a chance?" he asked dreamily.

"You bet," Hughes replied, placing a confidante hand on Havoc's shoulder. "You just need to stick to your guns."

"Right," Havoc answered strongly.

"Don't let anything get in the way of achieving your goal!"

"Right!"

"And if you need to distract from the cravings, I have just the thing!"

"RI- wait, what?"

Havoc felt himself get pushed back into his seat, and realized that he'd actually stood up in the heat of the moment.

"I was going to show these to Roy, but…" Hughes trailed off, and Havoc could hear him shuffling around in one of his uniform jacket's many pockets. All the happy feelings vanished completely from his mind.

"H-Hughes," he said, struggling with his growing sense of imminent danger. "You really don't have to-"

A pair of wide, child-like eyes filled his vision. A huge smile peeked out at the bottom. It was too late.

"LOOOOOOOK! My sweet little Elicia is having a tea party with her dolls. She even has little plastic biscuits to feed them, isn't that just the cutest thing you've ever seen?"

Havoc shivered in fear. He searched high and low for some sort of escape route while Hughes blathered on obliviously. He found absolutely nothing save the small, rectangular green and white package of cigarettes.

Beautiful, beautiful cigarettes.

'No, no,' his inner voice scolded. 'Do not start that again! You made a commitment and you're gonna stick with it no matter what.'

He eyed Hughes again, the crazed father was now chattering about Elicia eating a bowl of cereal or something. Havoc cringed.

'It's better than giving in,' he reasoned with himself. 'Plus, he has to run out of pictures eventually.'

30 MINUTES LATER

"And here she is looking at a caterpillar the was crawling up a flower in our back yard. My little Elicia isn't scared of it at all, she such a brave girl, isn't she?"

'If this guy ever stopped taking pictures of his daughter, all the camera and film companies in Amestris would go bankrupt within the week.'

Havoc watched Hughes pull yet another wad of photos out of his bottomless pocket, the eighth one so far. He felt like crying, masculinity be damned.

"That's great… real great, Hughes," he moaned in a zombie like and miserable fashion.

KNOCK

KNOCK

Both men looked at the wide open door, Havoc needed to crane his neck up high enough to cause a light cramp, in order to see over Hughe's raised arm. A familiar blonde decked out in red and black rested his shoulder against the door frame, staring back with one eyebrow rising slowly.

"Am I interrupting something?"

Hughes gave a hearty laugh and straightened up, thankfully taking his dreaded photograph collection with him. Havoc could've jumped up and sang a song, he was so relieved (he could also go for a cigarette, much to his consternation).

"Ed, my boy!" Havoc greeted the Fullmetal Alchemist with a friendly clap on the back. "What brings you here?"

Edward wordlessly held up a thin, light green folder stamped with a military seal.

"Just turning in a report," he paused to move around Hughes and walk to Mustang's desk at the back of the room. "Believe me, I'd never willingly put myself in Mustang's presence otherwise. Thank God he's not here right now."

"I see. I was just helping the 2nd Lieutenant here keep his mind off of smoking," Hughes explained. "He's giving it up, you know."

"Is that right?" was Ed's awkward response. He glanced over his shoulder at Havoc as the man crouched down behind Mustang's desk to file away the report Ed had so carelessly tossed onto the desktop.

"I've been keeping him busy with those adorable pictures of Elicia I took yesterday!"

At this, Ed shot Havoc a look of deep sympathy, while Havoc himself came dangerously close to fainting from the implication that all those photos had been taken over a period of just one day.

"Well, good luck with that," Ed said, an obviously fake smile on his face as he headed for the door much too quickly. Unfortunately for him, his luck wasn't any better than Havoc's today.

"Hang on, Ed," Hughes grabbed the boy by the hood of his coat, holding him back. "How would you like to help out? I'm sure Lieutenant Havoc would appreciate the support."

"Don't put words in my mouth," Havoc muttered under his breath. He went unheard, as Ed was too busy trying to convince Hughes of what a bad idea that was, while Hughes attempted to persuade Ed of what a good idea it was.

The volume turned up quickly, courtesy of Ed, and Havoc was left clenching his eyes shut as the throbbing pain in his head began to worsen. Visions of the sweet, calming cigarette smoke danced in his mind's eyes. Wouldn't this idiocy be so much more bearable if he just unwrapped that packet, took one out, pulled that cheap dime store lighter of his out and-

Havoc shook his head violently, trying to force thoughts of anything but cigarettes to the forefront. He immediately regretted this as the rapid movements made his headache even worse. Through the growing agony, he could barely make out what Ed and Hughes were saying anymore, let alone sift through a complicated pile of paperwork. Resigned, Havoc pulled the drawer out all the way and gathered the files into his arms. He strained a bit under the weight, but managed to pick himself up and drop them on the desk top anyway. He sat down in the Colonel's chair, relieved that, at least, he could now comfortably find the correct spot in the alphabetical lineup to place Edward's report. Unfortunately, he could now perfectly hear everything said alchemist was screaming at Hughes.

"Look, I already told you, I have to meet up with Al in twenty minutes. Havoc is doing fine on his own, I don't have time for this!"

"But Edward," Hughes moaned in response, pulling the young alchemist into a one armed hug he wasted no time in trying to get out of. "Don't you think he wants to know that all his friends are supporting him?"

"I am supporting him," Ed argued. "I'm just going to do it somewhere else. Now let go!"

Ed jerked around hard, pulling himself free as an unprepared Hughes was sent stumbling backwards… right towards the Colonel's desk. Havoc, who up til now had been focusing with all his strength of will on that massive stack of papers, only had time to look up and watch in horrified awe as Hughes arm swung outwards, searching for some sort of leverage to regain his balance. He found the files.

Havoc's mouth fell open as Hughes slammed his open palm down onto the top page. He stopped himself easily, but waiting a few seconds before removing himself and backing up. Havoc's eyes burned holes in the orderly pile, waiting with baited breath for any sort of movement, anything falling to the ground, any sound of falling papers rubbing against each other.

It didn't come.

Havoc felt his racing heart begin to slow with each second that passed. The files, though bending in the opposite direction a tiny bit, were completely stationary. Havoc breathed a sigh of relief, and he wasn't the only one either.

"Oh boy," Hughes shouted, rubbing the back of his neck. "That could've been really bad!"

Many years later, when Jean Havoc was and old, gray man whose mind was starting to go, he might have attributed what happened next to an act by a sadistic God that bore some inexplicable grudge against him. Or perhaps it could be explained in a more logical way; a sudden burst of wind, perhaps? That would be easier to believe, had all the windows not been locked tight. It could have been Edward, in a misguided attempt at a joke, using alchemy to inconspicuously make it happen.

Whatever the reason, whatever the cause may be, not one second after those contemptuous words left Maes Hughes's mouth, the stack of files began to sway. Slowly at first, so much so that Havoc didn't fully realize it was happening. By the time he did, the stack had tipped over, and before his, Hughes and Edward's very eyes, the foot tall stack of very important Military papers streamed out onto the floor, falling out of their folders and flying in all different directions. They mixed together, creating a giant messy blob of monthly reports and important notices. Everyone remained deathly silent, examining the damage with varying levels of dismay and shock. Havoc felt like melting through the floor and falling forever. That, or having a cigarette, maybe ten.

A nervous cough broke through the tension, leading Havoc's eyes to darted in Hughes direction as the clearly embarrassed Lieutenant tugged at his collar.

"Wow, I am really sorry, Lieutenant Havoc," he said. "Would you like me and Ed to help you clean this up?"

Edward opened his mouth, what he wanted to say, be it a protest or and agreement, Havoc would never know. He was on his feet faster than his mind could process and staring, not glaring, right back into Hughes's glasses framed eyes.

"No, it's fine," he said with a complete lack of emotion. "I'll clean it up myself. It's not your fault, sir."

"But-"

"Please." he said loud enough to make both Hughes and Ed jumped. One arm extended, pointing with finality at the door.

He didn't even care that he was technically displaying insubordination to a higher ranked officer. It wasn't like Hughes was going to report him anyway. As expected, Hughes tightened his lips until they were almost invisible, then gave a short nod and started for the door.

"See you later," Ed called out, as he lightly kicked some paper aside and followed Hughes out.

As their footsteps disappeared down the hall, Havoc was sure he heard Hughes talking to Edward, saying something to the effect of "his withdrawal symptoms are even worse than I thought."

Havoc took a deep breath, taking extremely careful steps back to his desk so to avoid not getting any footprints on the papers. He sunk into his chair, resting his head against the wall and letting out a long, loud groan. He stayed sitting their long after his voice puttered out, long enough for the ticking to start coming back. At that point, he opened his eyes and looked around.

The first thing he saw were the cigarettes.

There they were. They looked so good, so inviting. They'd get rid of his stress, and this headache, and…

"No, NO!" he smacked the back of his head against the wall, wincing at the pain before standing up. "I do NOT need those damn cigarettes. I can figure this out myself."

He slammed his fist against the desk, feeling like a politician giving a rousing speech to a crowd of a million onlookers. Havoc grabbed the packet, bypassing several more fallen papers on his way to the waste basket precariously placed next to Hawkeye's desk. Without a moment of hesitaiotn or deliberation, Havoc raised the cigarettes over his head, imagining those million people wildly cheering him on, and slam dunked the packet into the empty garbage can. It made a small thunk, but to Havoc, it might as well have been an explosion. The invisible crowd cheered louder, stamping their feet and chanting his name. It felt amazing, even though his still had a massive headache and his entire body was screaming at him for nicotine and he'd probably have to endure several more weeks of this before he was well and truly over it. But that didn't matter, because those stupid cigarettes where in the trash where they belonged.

Now all that was left was the other important task at hand.

The cheering switched off as if controlled by a light switch. With them went Havoc's euphoria as he looked out at the incredible mess. It looked a lot worse from this angle than it did while he was sitting, somehow.

'This'll take hours to clean up,' he inwardly fretted. 'I'll be here all night… unless I just leave.'

His smile returned, though not quite as bright, as the idea fully formed in his mind.

'Yeah, that could work! I'll just sneak out into the hall, it's almost time to go home anyway. I'll clock out, run out as fast as I can and be home in time for some good radio shows and a batch of those cookies mom likes to send me all the time!'

He straightened his stance, ready to take action and get home before he was either caught or the desire for cigarettes become too great.

'I can do this,' he told himself, slowly raising his foot to take the first step. 'I can do this. I can do this. I can-'

"Havoc!"

He froze. From his current position, Havoc couldn't see who the new voice belonged to, but it didn't matter in the slightest. He knew that voice all too well. His head turned at an agonizingly slow pace. This must be how execution victims feel when they face down the firing squad. He was not surprised at all to find a stone-faced Colonel Roy Mustang staring intensely at him, but the presence of not only Hawkeye, but every member of their team as well, came as something of a shock.

"S-sir," Havoc said after relocating his speech ability. "T-this uh… this isn't what- what I mean is I- I uh-"

"Save it," the Colonel said sharply, raising a hand and making Havoc close his mouth without delay. "Just get all this cleaned up before you go home tonight. Make sure everything is back in it's proper place. That's an order."

He added the last part after a quick pause, during which Havoc's lips parted ever so slightly. He didn't actually have anything to say in response. Even a 'yes sir' was beyond his abilities at the moment. The Colonel remained a few seconds longer, then started back the way he came, Hawkeye close behind. The others took an extra moment to shoot Havoc sympathetic looks of their own, before they too vanished from sight.

Left completely alone, Havoc couldn't move for a long time. All he had control over were his eyes, which darted back and forth between the mess and the garbage can and the mess and the garbage can and the mess and the garbage can…

When his legs would move again, the first thing Havoc did was diving for the garbage can. For the next four hours, he would be shuffling through papers, planning the imminent and horrifically brutal murders of Hughes and possibly Edward, and, of course, smoking as many cigarettes as he possibly could.

Truly, the road to recovery would be a long and daunting one.