Thank you so much to everyone who's given me prompts and requests! They make me sooo super happy! I can't wait to write them all! :) I just have to wait until I stop putting in so many hours at work :P Last week, I logged more hours than either one of my supervisors O_o
i.
Bucky is fourteen when he smokes his first cigarette. It's 1931. America is in financial trouble and evidence is everywhere. Too many people without jobs, without food, without hope. Everything is somber and gray and dirty.
He is wandering the streets, skipping school and feeling the hunger like a live animal in his belly. He wears his cap at a jaunty angle, daring the world to take a swing at his youthful attitude of defiance.
There's a couple of tired looking men leaning against the brick skeleton of what used to be a flourishing business. They stare at him and he stares right back. The defeat in their eyes bounces and reflects off the adolescent anger in his. That's when they wearily wave him over and pass him a cigarette, lighting it for him with exhaustion clinging to their movements.
He accepts it with a thrill of rebellion, knowing what his folks would say if they caught him. His first puff makes him gag but he gets the hang of it quickly. It makes the men smile but they don't look any less tired.
The cigarette is clamped between his teeth as he swaggers back the way he came, feeling mature and invincible with his acquisition. One or two older women raise a disapproving eyebrow in his direction and he tallies those up like points in his head. But for the most part, people ignore him, too wrapped up in their own troubles to notice a sight becoming too common too soon.
By the time he reaches Steve's tiny house, the cigarette is still burning and Bucky is happy it is. Without bothering to knock, he charges up the steps and heads for Steve's bedroom. The smell of sickness thickens the air but it's so familiar he barely notices. Steve is lying limp on the mattress, cheeks flushed and skin sticky with sweat.
Bucky plops down on the bed and shows Steve his prize. Steve's eyes widen at the forbidden object. Bucky tells him how great it is. How grown up it is. What he doesn't know how to put into words is that when he smokes, it makes him feel like he's got some way of getting back at the universe that's knocked his entire country to its knees.
Steve does anything Bucky does, like his own little shadow. This is no different. Weakly raising himself to his elbows, Steve reaches out a bony arm and Bucky places the smouldering cigarette in his sweaty palm.
It damn near kills Steve.
He starts coughing. And doesn't stop. Bucky laughs at the beginning, thumping his friend's skinny back. But the cough morphs into deep, painful, chest-heaving hacks that steals Steve's ability to breathe. His face turns the wrong color, eyes watery and filled with fear. Alarm quashes Bucky's ignorance and he realizes something is wrong. Panic follows.
Steve's mom is at work and his dad's been dead for years. The house to the left is recently empty and the one on the right holds an Irish family who can't speak a word of English. Bucky is alone with a slowly dying Steve and they're both terrified.
When Sarah Rogers unexpectedly bursts into the room, Bucky rethinks his decision that miracles are something he only hears about in church. She grabs the nebulizer from the dresser, adds the epinephrine, and guides the tube into Steve's gasping mouth. Bucky stands to the side, with a few frightened tears slipping down his cheeks, while she coaches Steve on how to breathe.
As soon as Steve can breathe again, when he's not gasping or coughing or dying anymore, Sarah eases him back against the pillows. Once he's lying down, she reaches to pull the blankets over him. And freezes when she finds the cigarette stump clutched in his thin fingers. She easily removes it and whirls on Bucky, demanding to know where he got it and what in the world was he thinking bringing it to Steve?
Bucky stutters his way through a teary explanation and apology. It's only when he swears that he'll never smoke another cigarette for as long as he lives, cross his heart, that Sarah's face softens and she guides him downstairs, allowing Steve to get some much needed rest. She sits Bucky at the table, feeds him bread and soup, and quietly warns him of the effects smoke has on Steve's fragile lungs. Bucky picks at his dinner, eyes downcast, and makes himself a promise that he'll never smoke again.
ii.
He breaks his promise five years later. He got a new job, one down by the docks. Cigarettes are as common a sight as fish down there and he wants to fit in. He never buys his own. Goodness knows, he's barely got enough money for food, let alone smokes. But someone's always got an extra one he can bum and he stands in a clump with the rest of them, inhaling and exhaling until they drop the stubs in the piles of ash at their feet.
Whenever he's been smoking on the job, he doesn't go home. His parents, good religious people that they are, would throw him out for sure and he still needs that roof over his head. It's cheaper than trying to find his own place. On the days when he's had a cigarette or two at work, he heads over to Steve's house. The stench of tobacco is thick on his breath and stays on his clothes but it's so familiar by now, Steve doesn't even comment on it. Steve stifles a small cough or two and Bucky makes sure not to stand too close while they discuss recent sports news.
It becomes a regular habit and he starts looking forward to it. He manages to keep it a secret from his parents, and it doesn't bother Steve, so he keeps doing it. Until America enters the war and he trains to become a sergeant.
iii.
It's been two years since his last smoke and Bucky thinks he would trade his own mother for one right now. It's February in Austria and the snow is up to his thighs. The cold has soaked through his uniform and he can hardly feel his legs to wrestle them through the snow drift. It's been like this for days. Nothing but marching through the cold. Chewing on stale biscuits in the cold. Standing watch in the cold. Wishing for sleep in the cold. Always cold.
He's at the head of the line, forging a path through the snow for his men to follow. The snow is thick and it hinders their progress but they have to press forward if they're going to have any chance of getting to the next town before the Nazis do. The sun is sinking lower and Bucky wants to shoot it already, if only to stop its teasing descent. Or maybe he wants to shoot himself. It's hard to tell. The cold makes it hard to think.
A hidden tree root catches his foot and he falls face first into a snow bank. The snow stings his bare skin and his shivers increase in intensity. A dark hand on his bicep pulls him up and he nods gratefully to Jones. The man gives him a quick flash of white teeth and they move on.
The march is even more torturous after his fall. He can feel the snow that slipped down his collar melting between his clothes and his skin. It's chaffing and freezing cold and no amount of squirming will relieve the intense discomfort. The sun is only a memory now, darkness eating up their surroundings. The temperature plunges further and Bucky's limbs are becoming numb.
He allows a couple hours to pass, a few more miles underfoot, before giving the orders to make camp for the night. His men gratefully halt, pulling out tins of food and rolling out sleeping bags. After they've choked down their unappetizing dinner, Bucky volunteers to take the first watch. His damp uniform won't allow him to sleep anyway.
A sort of silence falls over the woods and Bucky wonders if he'll freeze to death where he stands. Wouldn't that be a sight for his men to wake to in the morning? Someone stirs behind him, fabric rustling and snow crunching. He looks over his shoulder and is surprised to see Morita shuffling toward him.
Bucky waits for the other man to speak. He never does. He simply holds up a cigarette, which Bucky knows for a fact to be the last one in their whole company. Bucky hesitates and Morita sighs before grabbing his hand and slapping the cigarette into it. When Bucky's fingers finally curl around it, Morita pulls a matchbox out and strikes the match. Once the flame catches, he gives it to Bucky.
The cigarette hisses as it catches fire. Bucky takes a long drag and the heat rushes through his entire body. He doesn't say thanks but he doesn't have to. Morita gives him a nod before returning to his sleeping bag.
Now it's just Bucky and his cigarette. It's the only thing standing between him and death.
iv.
The soldier will not smoke. He will not drink. He will not have sex. He will complete his mission. That is his purpose. That is his focus. He will not become distracted. Distraction leads to failure and failure must be punished.
v.
When he smokes again, he doesn't even know why he does it. Maybe he does it just because he can.
He's in London, at least for the moment. He'll be moving on soon. Staying in one place for too long is too risky. He'll keep heading east, the direction he's been going. Perhaps he'll go to France next, or Germany.
The sky is melting, coming down in a light drizzle. It leaves a mist on his ball cap and he ducks his head into his jacket to avoid the moisture. He has nowhere to be and all the time to get there. The lack of a destination, of a deadline, a mission, is both disconcerting and freeing. It's a dilemma he's become accustomed to.
It's dry in the shop when he steps inside to escape the damp. He pretends to peruse the merchandise offered but his eye is on the display of cigarette cartons lined behind the counter. After a few more minutes of faking interest in the rest of the store, he strides up to the counter, points to the Pall Mall and slaps a £5 note in front of the cashier.
Outside in the rain, the tip of his cigarette glows softly. He puffs on it slowly, feeling the tug of half-forgotten memories stirring in his mind. There are impressions of it being a forbidden activity, of it saving a life, of it nearly ending one. A sick child with blond hair and a mother doing everything she can to save him. A promise made and broken. It's all there, just below the surface. So close. He can almost touch them, these remnants of a life lived and now gone. Of someone he used to be.
He drops the butt and grinds it into the asphalt.