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Filthy Habits
"I wish you'd quit." Ginji rolled down the car window and leaned out, noisily inhaling the fresh, tar-and-nicotine free air speeding past.
Ban frowned and gripped the steering wheel. Ginji hadn't ever brought up his excessive chain-smoking before. Which was a good thing, because Ban had no intention of revealing that often the only reason he smoked was to keep his hands and mouth occupied. A distration to keep himself from doing what he was so often tempted to do: put the moves on his partner.
"Because it stinks up the car," Ban said, squinting at the directions to the evening's stakeout.
"Oh, I'm used to that," Ginji said. The wind warbled his words, and flapped his loose clothes with a sound like birds' wings.
Doves, Ban thought with resignation. Innocent snow-white ones. He's a whole damn flock's worth.
"Because it costs too much," Ban said, taking a quick glance at his partner. The way the wind combed Ginji's hair back made him look like Raitei – but just for an instant. Even so, Ban found he had tensed up: force of habit.
Ginji pulled his head back into the car, smiled in that way that was 100 non-Lightening Emperor, and said, "Because it's bad for you."
"So is getting shot at," Ban said sourly, hoping to catch sight of a milepost. "And that happens to us a lot." He really had no idea where they were, but hated admitting to Ginji that they were lost.
"I'd like you to be around for a long long time," Ginji said suddenly several minutes later, and it took Ban a moment to figure out that the comment was a continuation of the smoking conversation.
"Plan to," he said irritably as he pulled over on the shoulder of the road. "But I don't see any reason to quit something I enjoy just because it might be bad for me." Damnit! He had only taken this road twice before, and both times he'd stayed on it all the way to the onsen near Madoka's family estate. Apparently he'd been driving on auto-pilot, ignoring the exits - including the one he should have taken.
Ginji mumbled something just as Ban swore and made a U-turn.
"What was that?" he asked. Without looking he fumbled for another cigarette, then, "Great!" he fumed, tossing the empty pack into the back seat. "We better pass a store on the way."
Silent disapproval from the passenger's seat. He sighed and pulled the car over onto the shoulder of the road again.
Ginji, who had indeed slouched down in the seat, sat up and looked around. "Are we lost?"
"What did you say?" Ban demanded.
"I asked if we were lost."
"No, idiot, before that."
Ginji shrugged. "Wasn't that important."
"You suck at lying," Ban said.
Ginji cleared his throat and said very quietly, staring out the smoke-fogged glass of the windshield, "I said I don't like the way smokers taste."
As Ban stared, not quite comprehending, at Ginji - sweet, pure as a snow white dove Ginji - a number of things went through his head, but the overriding thought he was left with was that any habit was easy to kick - with the right motivation.