Hi there! This fic is about child Chandler smoking for the first time as a way to deal with his parents' divorce. I really don't know how to write children, so I avoided any dialogues to save myself ;) Hope you'll like this short piece!

There was always yelling, that hadn't changed, at least. Not much had actually changed. Except that now, Chandler knew. He knew his parents wouldn't be together again. Not that he had really expected them to stop yelling each time they were in the same room, but as long as they hadn't said the words, they seemed to retain some of their anger towards each other. At least when their son was in the same room. Now, they didn't. They simply started raising their voices every time they saw each other, and Chandler fled more and more rapidly the room.

They were by the pool, still arguing about God-knew-what, and Chandler had walked into the kitchen, closing the door behind him to muffle their voices. When he heard his name in the conversation, he opened the door again, hiding himself from the transparent doors. He banged his head against the wall as they started to use him for their arguments. They were talking – screaming – about who would get Chandler, both pointing out how bad a parent the other was. Chandler hated it. He just wanted to go out there and tell them that he wanted neither if they kept behaving like this.

His breath caught up in his throat as he truly realized that his parents were fighting over who would get to win him in the divorce, as if he was an item. Like the house. They had already fought over the house. Or the TV. They had argued about that as well. Chandler put his palms against the wall, his head still pressed against it, staring at the floor and pushing against the wall. He was afraid of falling, but also angry. Maybe taking it out on the wall would help.

His vision blurred and he closed his eyes as he felt a tear escape his stubborn eyes. He didn't want to cry. He held his breath back, then breathed quickly. It was suddenly hard to breathe and he wished he could just lie down on his bed. What was happening to him?

He gripped his hair in one hand and his painful heart in the other as he struggled to breathe. Wasn't anybody around? Couldn't his parents just stop fighting and notice that he was within earshot and panicking because something was happening to him and he didn't even know what? Was he dying? He slid down the wall, closing his eyes almost painfully.

His parents stopped fighting, and he sighed, slowly managing to breathe properly. As he did, sounds came rushing back and he realized that his parents were still fighting, he just hadn't been able to hear them for a few seconds – minutes?

His breathing calmed and settled back to normal, and as he lay on the floor, one hand still holding his hair tight and his other arm wrapped around himself, he wished he were somewhere else, where his parents wouldn't fight, or wouldn't even be here. He sat straight, resting his back against the wall – he had been around that wall more than he had talked to any of his parents that day – and still wondering what had happened to him when he spotted his mother's bag. Or rather, the pack of cigarettes.

He had already tried, both his parents telling him that at least he would know how it tasted, and hadn't particularly enjoyed it, but they always seemed to feel better after smoking. He wasn't a thief, but he didn't really care as he reached for the pack and pulled one from it. After a second, he took the whole pack and stood on his feet quickly, only stopping a moment as his head spun around. He felt better fast and rummaged through one of the kitchen's drawers to find a lighter. The yelling didn't seem to calm down, but edged closer to the kitchen, so Chandler ran out, holding everything tight against his chest.

The first cigarette was awful. It tasted bad and he coughed because of the smoke. He didn't stop, though. His mother had been reading some passages of her most recent book to him, and he remembered a passage about a character smoking. She had described that it was how she had felt at first – disgusted, a bit weird and somehow dirty – but then she had read the words describing the feeling once the man in the book had got used to the taste. Chandler wanted this feeling. He wanted to feel good, because he kept feeling awful recently.

Nora had stopped reading after the passage, the story stopping when a naked girl entered the room. Her son knew he didn't want to know what happened next.

It eventually got better, and Chandler started to steal from his parents regularly – they were leaving packs everywhere anyway – each time telling himself that it would be the last time. It never was the last time, and the cigarettes seemed to alleviate the weight on his shoulders. Plus, he didn't have to stand in the same room as his parents if he had to hide to smoke. It was a win-win situation, really.