cigarette smoke and a cipher's smile
-- by: as beauty dies / pixie paramount (LJ) / Noelle
-- genre: general - het - romance

He smells like those fucking cigarettes constantly, not even his cologne can drown the smell.

(Though it's not like she should be surprised. Really, it would be a shock just to see him without one.)

She worries so much—he thinks she worries too much—about his health. ("You've got to take better care of yourself; do you want to die at thirty?")

She tells tell him—or anyone—why she worries. She doesn't even know herself.

She thinks it's because they are such good friends, that she cares for him and wants him to live a long, healthy life.

At least that's what she theorizes.

(The matters of her own heart have always been a mystery to her—more so than anyone she has ever known.)

"…Fucking idiot," she presses her nose to his jacket, inhaling his scent deeply, "you're going to die if you keep this up." You're going to leave me and I'll be left all alone a-and it will be your entire fault.

"I don't plan on leaving any time soon."

She smirks a bit at that, "They all say that." And they all lie to me in the end.



Tanya hides his cigarettes from him. Stuffing them in drawers and between books, in her purse. A tiny promise is made with each cancer-stick she hides, each time he wakes needy and voice scratchy, itching and biting with withdrawal. A few more years, is a promise he made and a promise he's made to keep.