(200 words.)
He reached for the cigar box after her, but she remembered him coughing blood across the back of his hand not an hour before, and she kept her hand over the lid with a frown. "Sure that won't make anything worse?" she asked.
Daud rolled his eyes. "That's not what's killing me."
"I think it is killing you, just slower than some other things."
He looked pointedly at the lit cigar held between her own fingers.
Billie shrugged. There were other things killing her faster, too. "I'll worry about it when I start sounding like you."
She saw Daud scowl at her, and then the world seemed to stutter, like she'd blinked a moment too long and missed some little movements around her. The cigar was gone from her hand and held now between Daud's teeth. Its smoke was still drifting above her own head.
She laughed in disbelief, too amused to be annoyed. "You used to get so pissed at us if we used our powers for stupid shit like that."
"I'm dying," he said with a shrug, almost managing to hide his satisfied smile.
Billie shook her head. "Fine. I'll let an old man have his last indulgence."