Disclaimer: Angel Sanctuary and all characters are the property of evil genius Kaori Yuki. I am only a borrower.
A/N: I will admit I'm not exactly sure where this came from. o.o I think I just kind of brainfarted it while taking a break from studying for askdjakh midterms-a friend and I were talking about cliches, and smoking came up, and I read this gorgeous gorgeous poem called "One Cigarette" by Edwin Morgan (which you should go Google now that I've told you about it, of course, heehee), and well, the rest is history, really.
I've been wanting to play with Kira/Setsuna and Lucifer/Alexiel for a good while, and admittedly I'm not so sure which this is, but oh well. It's Angel Sanctuary, after all.
No Smoke Without You, My Fire
i.
"Wanna do something corny?" His lips twist into a cooked grin around the cigarette; he holds the little plastic lighter held out to her like a treasure. "Light me."
The only response he gets is the arch of a perfect eyebrow. She's too much of a beauty to be a real smoker—she knows it—but this is the nth one of the night for him and it seems he's the only one who can make her tolerate the smell and the ash and the smoke. If that's not love, she's not sure what is.
"You're disgusting."
She's sure to touch his hand when she takes it—the lengths of fingers and perfectly manicured fingernails sliding deliberately and pointedly across his open palm, as if to say, I don't know why I put up with you sometimes.
The lick of the flame against paper and tobacco is almost a kiss.
ii.
After that last cigarette in the rundown coffee shop, they go home—probably her home, because his is too much of a dump to show her in good conscience. They hang up their coats, they go upstairs. Maybe they're holding hands, and maybe they aren't.
Then they make love, predictably enough. Or, well, they have sex, if you prefer. Then after they have sex, she falls asleep, and he smokes some more, and just for effect he'll be ashing into a tray that she keeps in her house just for him, because we've already established earlier on that she doesn't smoke.
She only ever wakes up to lock her arms around his neck, maybe kiss him on the ear, ask him what he's thinking about in that goddamn bedroom voice.
"Nothing," he always says. "I love you." And he kisses her on the cheek, halfheartedly, because he's already planning to be gone.
You know, this is the part where I reach for the remote and practically bash a hole through the Stop button, because I already know how it ends.
iii.
You know, babe, in another universe, or maybe if we were a movie, I think we'd be like that. Cheap, totally trashy—but pretty hot, all things considered, if you were into that sort of thing. We'd be the stuff of every deprived teenage boy's not-so-secret fantasy, acted out in a million Friday nights spent alone. How's that?
…Then again, I doubt you'd want that. Somehow I don't think you'd keep an ashtray on hand just for me.
And, well, now it seems I am a deprived teenage boy. Go figure.
Besides, you're the one who always does the leaving.