Smoke billowed languidly from the lit cigarette held steadily between Billy's fingers. His muscular body leant lazily against the railings of the rooftop he chose as today's spot. Small lights flickered over the city as the stars brightly lit up the otherwise dark sky.
It was one of those rare peaceful nights without villain attacks or petty thefts to disturb the sleeping town.
Billy liked to come out and watch the slumbering city to relax with a cigarette between his fingertips, occasionally putting it to his lips, breathing in the nicotine to relax his nerves as it mildly burned the back of his throat.
Everyone put the Captain off as a goody two-shoes but rarely can anyone stay innocent after living on the streets for so long. It slowly chips away, even at the best ones, it's uninventable even for them to pick up one or two unhealthy habits. He always made sure to stay away from drugs and alcohol, witnessing what it did to people, but he could never drop the habit of smoking. Not even after he received his powers.
The relief that came from the numbening of his aches gained from still healing bruises or wrongly healed bones from being at the wrong place at the wrong time, always hunting his every waking moment. It also made the hunger pangs almost ignorable, made him able to do with less food than he should most definitely need to ingest as a growing boy.
He did switch over to only smoking while in his immortal form keeping it only as a comfort habit not to damage anymore of his fragile mortal body than he already had over the years. It was hard to feel his stomach constrict with hunger and his various injuries sting once again but he endured. Those were almost negligible compared to trying to ignore the withdrawal symptoms .
At least having an adult body not only made it easier to get cigarettes but also to acquire the needed funds to feed himself. He could always scour some snacks and drinks away from the Watch Tower too when he really needed them. No one would bat an eye if he took some, most would just assume the Flash cleared out the pantry once again.
He made sure to only bring out the death sticks whenever he was alone, after all, a hero smoking wasn't exactly a good example to show to the people who adored him. He wasn't really ashamed of it, not really, it was just another fact of life to him at this point. Not worth trying to deny or change it.
Billy took another drag of the stick and savored the feeling of smoke filling his lungs and relaxing the unseen anxiety coiling in his shoulders.
He first started out with the thrown away almost burnt to the core discarded pieces found all around the dark alleys of Fawcet city. It was simply childish curiosity on his part at the beginning after hearing some of the other homeless teens talk about how freeing the whole ordeal was.
He was lucky in how he managed to find a crumpled but unopened pack of cheap cigarettes on the floor of a random street he always passed by. Someone must have dropped it in their hurry not noticing it missing and not caring enough to come back for it later. With the package safely tucked away in his battered hoodie's sleeves he skittered away to a safe spot to try the goods.
Billy fumbled with the box trying to get out a single piece and light it with a discarded lighter that barely held any fuel anymore. He found it in one of his dumpster dives and decided to keep it. You never knew when you would need to set something on fire in these parts of town, be it a dumpster fire to warm yourself or someone trying to mug you with a help of a well aimed bottle of oil.
Right after taking the first drag he went into a coughing fit, almost throwing the cigarette as far from himself as he could only resisting the notion to not to waste the thing for no reason not having the money to buy more for himself. Despite the disgust rolling around his stomach he took another drag of it, this time trying to keep the smoke down longer like he saw the other teens do. After the third drag he started to feel the effects: his mind quietened and the pent up aches in his body dulled, even the hunger pangs he long since got used to while living on the streets seemed to die down.
He would have liked to say, he did not get addicted but that would be as much of an untruth as denying the peace the simple repetitive motions brought him. Sneaking in one or two pieces in between the errands he ran became a common occurrence for Billy. Whenever he had the money he would go to one of those shady vendors that set up their ratty little stands to sell whatever they had. Cheap off brand cigarettes is what he looked out for in his case. There were always one or two people selling them as a common and well used commodity in this part of the town. You could rarely see anyone not smoking, everyone knowing well enough how it made you eat less.
Food was expensive and hard to find. You could count yourself lucky if you managed to eat even once a day. But cigarettes? You could get one pack for some random scraps, trade not begin rare in their community. Even after giving him the stinky eyes Tawny never dissuaded the boy from continuing, being perfectly aware he could have acquired much worse habits on the street than that. He only asked not to smoke in their presence as the smell bit into their delicate sense which the boy readily agreed to never one to make others unnecessarily uncomfortable.
He was pulled out of his reminiscence by an alarm blaring a few streets over snapping his attention straight back to reality. He snuffed out the cigarette on the railing of the roof and readied himself for another long night of crime fighting. He slowly rose into the air and shot off towards the direction of the commotion, fastly increasing in volume. With a gust of wind left in his wake his form quickly disappeared from the otherwise abandoned rooftop.