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Smoke, blue from the twilight streaming in through the open window, seeped from Charles' parted lips and spiraled towards the ceiling. Erik watched it twist and toil until it disappeared against the peeling stucco. Outside, a man and a woman got into separate cars and started them at the same time. Charles' eyes were closed, and his arm was slack, hanging off the side of the bed. The filter was pointed towards Erik and away from the bedskirt. Wordlessly Erik got out of the stiff armchair and plucked the cigarette from Charles' fingers.
Charles knew better than Erik did what cigarettes did to the lungs; to the body, the brain, the teeth. How whatever chemicals handpicked for dependency affected the cells. In the daytime, he quietly clicked his tongue at smoking passerby, so quiet that Erik was almost sure he wasn't supposed to hear it. Yet every night one hung so carelessly from between Charles' index and middle, dangling like he wanted Erik to come and take it from him. Sometimes he did. And sometimes he extinguished the thing in the bedside ashtray. Other times he put it between his own lips and felt it for himself. Nothing internal fueled either decision; it was like keeping a receipt.
Tonight, Erik only held it. The tip smoldered and shortened, ashing gently onto the ratty green carpet. Snuffing it out would do one of two things: Charles would get gently sardonic, and his kisses would sting; or he would simply light another one as if nothing had ever happened, and Erik would fall asleep on the other side of the room. But Erik didn't want to breathe it in, either.
The stiff bedsprings creaked and groaned under Charles' weight as he sat up, his hands on his knees. His eyes were bleary with exhaustion; he'd driven most of the day. Erik felt a stab of guilt at the purpling crescents beneath his eyes and almost handed the cigarette back to him, but something in Charles' silent stare stilled his hand.
"I know," Charles murmured, his gaze softening, "you think it hypocritical."
There was no use hiding anything. "A little," he admitted. Erik rolled the cigarette between his fingers; it would be down to the filter soon. "But I am too."
"As hypocritical as a doctor puffing on fags?" He blushed at his sudden sardonicism and pursed his lips together. "Sorry. I...." His voice trailed off into breath.
"I'm not going to make you justify yourself to me," said Erik. Unspoken: It would never work anyway.
Charles smiled bitterly. "I feel I should try. When I can, I like to act like a normal person." He spat the last word out with a violence that made Erik twitch, ash raining down to the floor. Charles grimaced, reached across the bed for the ashtray, and held it out for him. Relief welled in Erik's chest as he flicked the butt away. Charles said again: "I'm sorry."
There were a lot of things Erik could say to that that would lead the conversation elsewhere. It's OK, he could say, and Charles would look at him gently again and wrap his arms around his neck, and they'd wake up with their breaths beating on the other's brow. I am too, he could say, and Charles would sigh and kiss him behind the ear, would take his time with him later. No you're not, Erik could say, and Charles would laugh with more air than sound and reply, Maybe you're right, then retreat into the encroaching night, appearing the next morning with his eyes bloodshot and his fingernails bitten to the quick.
Charles saw those paths better than Erik himself. So Erik said nothing and watched his mouth twist, forming neither a smile nor a frown, as if testing each reaction in his head, each possible future.
Finally, Charles licked his lips and said, "I'm going to take a shower, if you don't mind."
Erik shouldn't have expected much more. As he sat back down in the lumpy armchair overlooking the forest of ashy carpet, Erik wondered why.
When he heard the shower turn on, he undid the lock on Charles' suitcase by hand. Tucked in between his socks and two belts was a pack of Winstons. When he opened it, there were three missing. Erik picked up the box and threw it out the window. It landed in the bushes.