Meme fic for Rae. Michael/Lei, on the theme of "those cold winter Sundays". This may be dodgy; it's been a while.
Snow And Ashes
Michael smokes cigarettes like his life depends on it, sucks in ash like oxygen and huffs blue-grey trails out the open window. It's a bad habit, one that coaches have been trying to break him of for years, but Michael's never been one to let common sense dictate his actions; and besides, the bad boy image is good for publicity.
"Close the fucking window," Lei suggests from the bed; still curled under the covers after midday, like a cat hiding from the cold. Or a hibernating bear, Michael thinks - he's certainly badtempered enough - but he does what he's asked after one last drag, flicking the butt out into the street where it's lost in the snow. Then he goes and brushes his teeth, because Lei won't kiss him tasting of cigarettes, and Michael quite likes kissing Lei. Likes it enough that he gets back into bed to do so more conveniently, noting that Lei tastes of tea and morning breath, but not really minding.
Lei makes a noise halfway between a growl and a purr, pulls him close, and Michael can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Things can't stay like this, he knows. Lei is restless: not right here and now, but in general, yeah, he's getting restless again. New York doesn't suit him for long, never has done. It's too grey, too cramped, too concrete and steel, and it makes Lei feel too caged. Eventually he always feels a need for the mountains, greenness and the smell of clean air. And, eventually, he always goes.
Michael doesn't understand this need, but he accepts it, because we've all got habits we can't shake. He has never asked Lei not to go - never would, just as he'd never ask when he's coming back, or even if. Because it's not as if he needs Lei, not as if he misses him, not as if he pines after him like some weepy romance novel heroine. Sure, he likes having Lei around, but he can take it or leave it, y'know? Lei is just another habit, one that Michael could give up whenever he wants; nicotine is his only genuine addiction.
Sometimes he gets a weird feeling when Lei's been gone a while, a niggling in the back of his brain that reminds him of that time he tried to give up smoking, when his fingers were itching for a cigarette to hold and all the gum and patches in the world were worse than useless. (The first cigarette afterwards tasted better than anything ever had, he remembers.) Sometimes he doesn't sleep too well, and he seems to end up smoking a lot more when Lei's not around, sitting by the open window and brushing his teeth after, even though there's no one to complain about the smell of tobacco from him or his apartment.
Just another habit he's fallen into, like all his habits, like all the things he can quit whenever he wants to. And if Michael knows, deep down, that he's a lot better at picking up habits than he is at giving them up, well, that's his business.
Lei gives a sigh of lazy contentment and shifts closer, breath steady on Michael's neck. Michael thinks that maybe bears have the right idea, just curling up someplace cosy to wait out the winter; he thinks that he could stay right here for as long as he's allowed, could out-wait an ice age with Lei pressed warmly against him; he wonders when Lei will tell him that he's leaving again.
He could really do with another cigarette.