#hungry work

[tinglingfuckingsensation]

We've a lot of starvin' faithful

That looks tasty, that looks plenty

This is hungry work

Take me to church - Hozier || Baberoe

Hungry Work on AO3 (Rated E)

Fic Summary:

Gene knows he’s not right, knows he should not enjoy grasping other men’s ankles and wrists and chins in his hands as much as he does, should not admire the look of broad shoulders and thick thighs in green uniforms, so he clamps down tightly on all his urges and prays.

OR

Medics need to keep their distance, and Gene does, until he can't.

Half character study, half love story, with a lot of religious guilt and prayer.

[a-themockingbirdsings]

Hungry Work

OPEN

The lab kitchen was out of ramen.  The entire world was running dangerously low on the stuff, of course, but right now, the cupboard above the microwave labelled STRICTLY NO SCIENCE was barren.  A tragedy at 2:47 AM if there ever was one.

Looking decidedly wired, she replaced her lab coat with a long cardigan and made her way upstairs towards the kitchen.  Her reading glasses were slid up on top of her head, and she had stuck one pen up into her ponytail, which she had apparently forgotten about, because there was a second one in there.

The Dread Lab Spectre found herself reheating a soup that resembled but was not quite minestrone but made a convincing impression of it, it was left over from the dinner she had missed several hours ago.  This was better than pouring flavoured noodles down her throat and going back to the lab, and she knew it.  She had a feeling that someone was going to tell her off for missing dinner again, but she really had lost track of time.  She looked at the list on the wall of meals for the week that May had drawn up while she waited for her late dinner to warm up.  She wondered if there was bread left.

[tinglingfuckingsensation]

having (lengthy) thoughts about mental health & religion while writing the final chapter for my baberoe WIP hungry work

In short: reflections about the serenity prayer in the context of ww2, trauma and grief, contains spoilers/musings for Hungry Work and a potential post-war sequel.

Hungry work has overt religious themes, the most prominent ones being religious homophobia (especially in the beginning) and loss of/struggle with faith over the course of the war, because I've been obsessed by how Gene's prayer (the peace prayer of st. francis) informs his character and gives some insight into his otherwise opaque inside life.

I've spent weeks researching other prayers that would fit the narrative arc of Gene relating to his faith, from being deeply entrenched in it & drawing strength from it, to struggling/breaking with it through some of his lowest points to finding his way back to it, because I could not see him completely abandoning the church or god.

Imagine my anguish when I found that one of the most well-known prayers of all time, the serenity prayer, was the one I resonated the most with for this fic, because it's like the hallmark card / live laugh love poem that everyone has stuck on their walls....

Turns out, it was created around the time of the 2. world war (by Reinhold Niebuhr, a german-american theologist), and distributed to soldiers and army clergy via prayer books & cards around 1944, which made it too perfect not to include it in my fic.

I'll put the full text here so I can dissect it:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace. Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen

To start with, I the first part is arguably the most well-known one, since it has been, among others, been adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous, and for good reason too.

It touches on the concept of acceptance, which is repeated throughout the poem. ("accept the things I cannot change", "Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace", "Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is").

Acceptance is a concept that comes up in mindfulness practice and certain modern therapy concepts such as ACT (Acceptance & Commitment Therapy), and has helped me profoundly in dealing with my personal mental health struggles, which maybe explains why I am vibing with that prayer so much.

Bc this is already turning into an essay anyway, have a quote about it:

Acceptance methods enhance patients’ experiential acceptance, defined as having or allowing private events (including painful ones) free of attempts at regulation —in other words, allowing things to be experienced without needing to change them or push them away. (Goldberg et al. (2023))

Reading the real veteran's interviews, one stuck out to me in particular concerning this concept, it's by Don Malarkey about the experience he had meeting Richard Speight Jr. who played Skip Muck:

"Richard became a great support for me, this kid half a century younger than me. Never made me feel like some sentimental old fool. Told me he understood my emotions. Said it was OK, that I was emotional because Skip and I had meant so much to each other and that was a good thing, not a bad thing. That meant the world to me." (Don Malarkey, Easy Company Soldier)

I think this quote shows how much many veterans would have benefitted from a society that allows them to own and accept their feelings of grief, pain and loss, instead of denying them. And while I don't think mindfulness practice is enough to seriously treat clinical PTSD, I think some of the core concepts would have been incredibly helpful to reduce some of their suffering - and I'm sure a number of veterans did benefit from these concepts, without putting the name to it. While most modern mindfulness practice is adapted from non-western spirituality, I think it's significant that the same sentiments are reflected in Christian Prayers as well.

Why is that significant? Well, throughout and up to the end of my fic, Gene is going through it, he's struggling severely with what he has experienced and I don't see myself writing an ending that glosses over that - instead of a happy ending, I want a hopeful one, and the fact that this prayer existed at that time, in that context, and was distributed to soldiers is exactly what I needed for that to make sense narratively.

Because how does someone cope with all of that in a healthy way? And more importantly, how would someone at the time, with access to resources they did at that moment, get the right idea about what might help them suffer less? There's no way to include modern therapy speak into a ww2 fanfiction without breaking character, so to speak.

The answer, of course, lies in religion. I think many people turned to religion for comfort during & after the war, especially those that were religious beforehand. Since it's already established in canon that Gene turns to the peace prayer of st francis for comfort and guidance, I think it's not a leap to assume he would be able to draw strength from the serenity prayer as well (especially considering it did not have the same connotations and notoriety at the time as it does now).

There's one part in particular that lends itself to exploring how one could approach that, namely "Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time;" - this is something Gene has been doing in the fic, in part, by enjoying his time with Babe, and it's how he's kept himself together enough so he doesn't get discharged.

So this is what has been floating around in my head for a post-war fic that gives his struggle justice without being a complete downer - I want to explore him finding joy in his life after the war, of finding the things that bring him comfort and relief, even while he struggles with what he's seen.

So I think the goal for Gene is, to quote that prayer again, to try and find a way to "be reasonably happy in this life" - which will include, of course, finding ways to be with Babe despite all the obstacles of that time, but also find things that are just for himself, and trying to live each day instead of incessantly worrying.

[tinglingfuckingsensation]

Hungry Work Chapter 7 is finally up!

unfortunately I also had to raise the chapter count again 🤡

(Cover art by the wonderful amazing talented @cirr0stratus I owe him my life actually)

Hungry Work (20135 words) by tinglingsensation

Chapters: 7/8

Fandom: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationships: Edward "Babe" Heffron/Eugene Roe

Characters: Eugene Roe, Edward "Babe" Heffron

Additional Tags: Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, Slow Burn, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Touch starved! Gene, Religious Guilt, References to Period-Typical Homophobia, Explicit Sexual Content, Coming In Pants, Oral Sex, Eugene Roe Needs A Hug, and he gets it!!!!!, references to religious / child abuse and lynching, but in like one sentence

Series: Part 1 of Hungry Work

Summary:

Gene knows he’s not right, knows he should not enjoy grasping other men’s ankles and wrists and chins in his hands as much as he does, should not admire the look of broad shoulders and thick thighs in green uniforms, so he clamps down tightly on all his urges and prays.

OR

Medics need to keep their distance, and Gene does, until he can't.

Half character study, half love story, with a lot of religious guilt and prayer.

tagging @rated-s-for-shenanigans

if anyone else wants to be tagged, drop me a message & I will!

[tinglingfuckingsensation]

When the 6-months WIP is done

Hungry Work Chapter 9/9

Fandom: Band of Brothers (TV 2001) Rating: Explicit

He thinks back to the nights back in Bastogne, when Babe had prayed with him. It had been a lifeline at the time, a source of comfort during what might've been the worst time of their lives, and Gene thinks he might be in need of that again.

[tinglingfuckingsensation]

Hungry Work Chapter 8/9 is up

(Warning, Gene's going through it in this one for real)

(thank you @cirr0stratus for the cover art, go check out his other wonderful Baberoe art 🥰)

Hungry Work - Chapter 8 - tinglingsensation - Band of Brothers (TV 2001) [Archive of Our Own]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[hungrykrow]

[hungrykrow]