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He hasn’t kicked the habit. Despite the years on and off without the flicker of a lighter in front of his mouth, he’s always back here. Leaning against a cold wall, polluting the night sky with a puff of smoke. Jesse is sleeping, safe on the parallel Earth, where he only has this world’s villains to worry about. He makes sure she’s in R.E.M. sleep when he steps out, footsteps quiet in the steady hum of the labs. Gently illuminated by a distant light, Harry Wells takes another drag of his cigarette. Peacefully alone.
Then, the door slams open. He’s a good yard away, so he can’t make out who has just interrupted his one solace. The man’s shoulders heave up and down at a slow pace, trying to calm himself down. A bolt of lightning gives it away. Also, the man encased in said lightning has just appeared in front of him.
Barry isn’t in his suit. Dressed in his bland millennial disguise and head tilted to the side in curiosity. Though his cheeks are pink. Eyes red-rimmed. He should stamp out his cigarette and walk away, but Barry starts to speak, and his chance of escaping conversation dwindles.
“Why doesn’t it smell?”
Right. This Earth hasn’t figured out how to remove the chemical stench of their cigarettes. Harry invested a good bit of personal funds into this breakthrough. Quality-of-life improvements, he told his staff. To be fair, it wasn’t lying when no one would ever complain about the smell again.
“Simple,” Harry flicks ash to the side, “I made them.”
He can go through all the chemical engineering responsible for odorless cigarettes, but his lips are wrapped around the smoke yet again. Barry purses his lips for some reason, worrying the bottom before releasing it. Smooth as ever, incapable of becoming chapped. He ends up leaning on the wall next to Harry, close enough for their shoulders to touch. He doesn’t mind, finding it nice to have another source of warmth other than his smoke.
Barry watches every inhale and exhale with an intensity Harry’s never seen before. It isn’t distaste, nor anger. What it is, though, is annoying. He’s a quarter ways done when he can’t take it anymore.
“Do you want one or are you going to keep staring?”
He digs out his case, the sleek metal scuffed and scratched over the years, and opens it to reveal a pristine line of bona fide Earth-2 cigarettes. One is held out to Barry, expectant and frustrated. Maybe this will scare him off.
He raises his brows when Barry actually takes it.
In his mouth, it looks too in place. His Earth-2 counterpart probably wouldn’t touch a cig, even as normalized as it was. Knowing what it can do to your body, with your lungs blackening and neurons dying. This Barry doesn’t have glasses to accentuate his naive eyes. They held weight, heavied by a past no kid should have. Haunted by pain that surely is held within his body. He catches Barry rubbing his back when they’re in the lab together, not reading the papers below him.
Well, he deserved a smoke break too.
Harry’s lighter is just as old as his case. Flicking it on took a few tries, but it always came through. Of course, until now. By the tenth try, Barry had to laugh.
“Want me to run and get you a new one?”
He had to offer help. He’s always doing that, helping. Forgiving him over and over again. Accepting that he was going to be a painful reminder of a man who ruined everyone’s lives in this building. Especially Barry’s. He shakes his head. Barry shouldn’t have to run at the end of the day, when he should be home with his family. Instead, he’s out here with an old man with an unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth.
Harry turns Barry’s head towards him by his chin, using the lit end of his cigarette to ignite the other’s. Barry’s eyes flutter as he lets himself be moved around. His fingers have calluses from overuse. They’re cold. His thumb rubs the divot of his chin below his bottom lip.
Barry’s just hoping he can remember how to smoke in the first place. Distant memories of a bad influence say inhale, hold it, then exhale.
He sure inhaled. The sheer burn of smoke had him coughing it right back out in Harry’s face.
He’s ready to be ridiculed, though the laugh he gets instead is worth it. From the depths of his chest, it’s pleasantly echoing throughout the night. He grips Harry’s arm as he coughs out the last of his terrible second try of a cigarette. Harry holds him up, solid against him.
“Take it easier next time,” Harry says between chuckles. He’s never seen anyone so untalented in smoking on his Earth, so this tickled him. He straightens Barry’s posture, then takes his cigarette out to replace it with Barry’s. His mouth stays slightly open.
“Like this.”
Harry closes his eyes as he takes a small portion of smoke into his lungs. The lightness settled in his forehead is welcomed. He blows out the smoke in a steady stream. Pointing at the burning points of Barry’s inhale and his, the cigarette is slid back into Barry’s waiting lips.
He has no choice but to copy Harry. He’s committed to this and damn right he’ll see it through. Barry took a drag, coughing only once. There’s a humored twinkle in Harry’s eyes, illuminated by his burning end.
“Never smoked?”
“I actually have,” Barry prolonged his i, smoke escaping from his mouth. “Once, when I was teenager.”
No wonder. Harry’s throat moves with another laugh. Barry follows his Adam’s apple with great interest.
“Tasting the cigarettes on this Earth would put anyone off for life,” Harry complains. Barry has to agree. While he’s getting used to the smoke, the cool taste of this cigarette is oddly satisfying. Like the menthol was sweeter. His next puff of smoke doesn’t come with a cough.
“Thanks for sharing one with me, you know, because…” Barry trails off. He’s suddenly grateful for the cigarette in his mouth, being able to shut himself up while trying to seem natural. Harry understands what he was going to say, though.
“They’re in limited stock, since I can’t go back to my Earth.” Harry finishes his thought for him, blowing smoke into Barry’s saddened face. It’s lifted by Barry wrinkling his nose.
“We’ll find a way, Harry, just-”
Harry’s hand is heavy on his shoulder. Shut up is the message. They both lean on the wall, letting the smoke drift between them. It’s thicker than this Earth’s smoke. Wafts in the air, making patterns that Barry becomes enamored with. His finger cuts through curling waves. It’s Harry’s turn to admire him now, the absolute absurdity of this. He has the Flash tracing lightning bolts in cigarette smoke. Happier than he’s seen in a while. More at peace. Harry being the reason for such an expression is unbelievable.
It’s the dependability of smoking. Inhale the weight, then let it go. The heady nature has Harry coming back for more. Barry got the hang of it fast, though he can’t help but ask.
“Can you even feel it?”
Barry pauses his motions to face Harry, halfway done with his cigarette. His eyes are slightly watering from the smoke, but joyous nonetheless.
“No, not at all. Don’t think you can invent one that I can actually feel the effects of?”
He could, he really could. He shakes his head, even if he was smiling.
“I’d rather not become a worse influence,” Harry mumbles around his dying cigarette. Barry’s hand slips on top of Harry’s, still sitting on his shoulder. Fingers circle the bruised knuckles from hitting a failing invention a few too many times. He doesn’t press down on them, light as a feather when he gives the grooves of his ring finger attention with his own.
“You’re a good man, Harry.”
A serious reassurance had Harry remember how Barry came out here in the first place. He uses his pinky to touch Barry’s wrist, and Barry intertwines their fingers together.
Harry feels a squeeze on his hand. He doesn’t know exactly what to say. Barry’s supposed crisis is a mystery.
He’ll settle on the truth then.
“You’re an even better man, Allen. We wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.”
We as in himself and Jesse. We as the team he’s grown to care for. We as this Earth. Free from being ravaged. A moment in respite before the incoming war.
Barry rests his cheek on their joined hands. Ash scatters. His eyes closed to enjoy the warmth. Harry’s thumb rubs Barry’s, relaxing him further. Gentle trails of smoke circle Barry’s head like a halo. At least he doesn’t have wings on his cowl.
They stay conjoined until the last of the ash falls to the ground. Only their filters are left. Neither of them wants to move, though. To break the silence with obligations, no, not yet.
Barry is the first to move. His other hand brings Harry’s free hand up to his mouth. Harry instantly takes the cigarette from him, accidentally brushing his lips with his knuckles. Barry guides his hands to his cheeks, intent on being held by hands that have been scarred before he was born. Hands that have killed and will kill again if needed. He will never forgive himself, so Barry does it for him. Despite being unable to forgive himself as well.
Harry will have to do the same for Barry, then.
Ozone is a familiar taste. The addition of nicotine is just as addictive. Tar sticks to his teeth when he licks them. Butane lights the flame in remembering their past indiscretions. Late nights in the lab with nostalgia sickening Barry. He knows this isn’t him, and that’s why he needs this. A man who tries to be good in the end, who loves so much it turns harsh. Who touches him so much that it’s close to overwhelming. They live hanging on spindling threads. When they tangle together, perhaps they can create a knot that can hold them for the time being.
The only evidence of them is ash. It’s washed away by rain the next day.