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Sometimes Roy still smells the nicotine; Jason hasn’t smoked in ages, but the cloud is still there. It clings to his lungs, to his skin, to his clothes; Jason calls him loco and Roy smiles softly.
But he knows he’s not crazy; he knows it’s there still, like a bad taste in his mouth. It’s not that Roy has the right to judge; they each have their vices. Jason chews nicotine gum, Roy goes to AA meetings. But still, Roy smells it in his hair, tastes it on his skin, feels it in his eyes. Smog and thick, heavy and tiring.
Jason seemed to have always smoked, not unhealthy amounts but Roy would find him sneaking a cig behind a chimney where Batman couldn’t see him; Roy would quip and prod and Jason would puff the smoke from his lungs across Roy’s face with a laugh.
It gives him nightmares, of a destroyed warehouse and a boy being pulled out of the wreckage; but Roy doesn’t say anything when Jason curls under his chin, his hair tickling Roy’s nose, or when he wakes up crying from those visions.
He doesn’t want Jason to worry, but Jason figures it out pretty quick.
“What’s wrong?”
Roy doesn’t say anything; he looks down at the cooling cup of coffee and shrugs.
“You haven’t been sleeping well,” he says, and Roy can’t deny the worried look in his eyes, the soft tone.
“You smell like smoke.”
Jason pauses before shrugging. “So? I used to smoke a lot; it kinda clings to you.”
“I just… I don’t like it,” Roy says, but doesn’t want to elaborate; he doesn’t want Jason to know he was there, at the warehouse, he doesn’t want Jason to feel guilty.
But Jason just shrugs, grins and stirs his coffee.
“It’s better than smelling death,” Jason jokes, and Roy knows he can carry this burden if Jason has to carry that one.