tragic_mask | (no subject)

"I think so, too." She smiles. "Can I bum a cigarette off you? All this talk of forges is making me crave fire."

"Oh, of course," he says, lighting one and offering it over. "Now you know why I smoke, and why I'll never be able to quit."

"Of course," she says, inhaling, then exhaling a cloud of smoke. "Sadly, my reasons are not so poetic."

"No?" he asks. "Why do you do it, then?"

"For something to do with my hands," she says, lightly.

"It's very good, for that," he agrees.

"Admittedly, I also do it partially so that when people say 'that stuff is killing you, you know,' I can just sneer at them."

"I've tried explaining to them that even if I were able to be killed that way, this particular kind of cigarette would not do it, but they never believe," he says.

"Really? What's so special about these?" She inspects hers.

"I have a... a friend, who makes them," he says. "Without all the chemicals that the companies put in, but with a few other ingredients that are secret."

"Oooh," she says, intrigued. "Sounds like he should be drawing in the cash. Everyone loves a good cancer-free shot of nicotine."

"I pay him well," he nods. "Extremely well. I also smoke a lot, as you have seen."

She takes a drag.

"Luckily for me."

"And for me."

He smiles. "I used to have a pipe. It's much less portable."

"And turns you into a portly middle-aged man-- the sort you might be, if you were the vacationing lovebird you pretend to be, and not yourself.

"No," she says contemplatively, "It has to be the cigarettes."

"I thought I was angular and scholarly, myself," he says, amused. "With unruly hair, and... leather patches on the elbows of my jackets, you know."

She pictures it.

"In college, no doubt. Being the intellectual giant you were, of course, quibbling over the translation of Faust. But... later, you clearly let yourself go, and sat by the fire every evening smoking a pipe and reading the news."

The image is a little dated, perhaps. But it's the one she has.

"I was a coffeehouse intellectual, of course," he says, "more fond of proclaiming and expounding than attending classes. It's certainly not my fault if metabolism at forty isn't what it was at twenty..."

She stops in the middle of the street to look him up and down.

"Yeah, sure it isn't," she says-- with a straight face-- then marches onward.

He chuckles, moving to follow her. "Walking isn't as easy as it was when I was young, but at least I have upper-body strength. That counts for something."

"I suppose. Better than letting those biceps and triceps go to waste."

"The better to carry you around with, my dear. Light as you are, but I could carry you for hours... show me a twenty-year-old who could do the same, and I will fight him for you."

"I'll have to test that," she says, lifting a brow. "Two hours, let's say. Now all I need to do is find a twenty-year-old willing to do this-- or try-- for the sake of your ego. Not an easy task, I think."

"You know just how to treat a man's ego," he murmurs. "I knew there was a reason I liked you."

"Yes..." she says, with a grim face. "I kiss the boys, then make them cry."