"I don't think there's a way out" said Luke. "There are these three doors. One I came through and the other you came through. And of course the third one on the other side, but none of them has any kind of handle or anything."
"That's impossible! There has to be at least an emergency exit or something" Matt replied, examining the walls and doors of the small room. "I mean, this room seems pretty airthight. We will suffocate if we don't get out!"
Matt could feel panic raising in him and so did Luke. That's certainly not how he wanted to die, forgotten in some ancient basement of their university building.
"What -- I can't believe you're smoking in this situation. We have little enough air!" Luke heard the angry yell of Matt.
"What are you talking about? I'm not a smoker" he automatically replied, but at the same time he realized his hands had seemingly with routine retrieved a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his back pocket, one of them already dangling from his lips and ready to be lighted.
"I'm... not." He stuttered, visibly confused. "I don't smoke!".
He wanted to spit out the foreign object, but on the other hand... He had heard that smoking was a good way to calm down. And this whole situation was crazy enough, so perhaps...
Even as he was still thinking about it, he heard the distinct click of the lighter and felt tobacco smoke fill his lungs, as he greedily took the first pull in.
Matt's panic had dissolved into visible annoyance for the moment. What was the other man thinking, wasting and polluting their precious air with a stinking cigarette? And lying about it, as well. Luke might say he didn't smoke, but the movement patterns he exposed while taking another drag on the cigarette seemed all to well experienced for that to be true.
Probably one of those guys smoking since they were 14. Matt watched with growing annoyance as Luke dropped some ash on the floor. He didn't really understand why, but this somehow annoyed him even more. Not only was he stinking up the air, he was also making a mess on the floor with it.
Sure, there was the voice of reason reminding him that caring about some dusty and dirty basement floor, especially in the situation they were in, might be not a very rational thought, but right now, Matt did not care.
As Luke began to snip his cigarette again to dispose of the ashy tip, Matt reached out his arm and caught the ash in the palm of his hand. "Don't drop your ash on the floor, asshole", he hissed.
Luke was geniunely suprised by this. Why did Matt care about the floor all of a sudden. And what was he so getting worked up about? In fact, the cigarette seemed to help him relax, it always did. He just shrugged and blew a cloud of smoke right into Matts face, sending him coughing.
"As you like" he replied. He couldn't really stand those moral apostles who wanted to ban smoking everywhere and make life harder for smokers. Not that he was one, but... well, actually he pretty much was smoking since he was a kid, so perhaps he should call himself a smoker. Lost in his thoughts, he dropped another bit of ash into the open hand of Matt.
The situation was bizarre. They were trapped in some kind of ... cell and yet that asshole smoker was doing nothing about it but polluting the air. And he, Matt, was standing next to him, catching his waste in his hand. He looked at his hand with the grey particles in his palm and looked around. There didn't seem to be an ashtray or a garbage bin to dispose of it, just the couch, the table and the floor. Dropping the stuff on any of that would defeat the whole purpose. It strangely felt like it was his duty to not get any of it on the furniture or the floor. As Luke dropped more into his hand, he followed a sudden and insane impuls: He shoved everything that had acummulated in his hand right into his mouth, even licking his hand clean.
The taste was utterly disgusting. It tasted ashen, and of cold tobacco. He wanted to spit out the disgusting mass right now, but instead found himself swallowing. Matt was horrified by himself, but felt himself say "Just... drop it right into my mouth. That's cleanest.". And with that, he opened his mouth wide.
That Matt guy was surely behaving funny now. Did he really just swallow his ash? What good would that do? Luke mentally shrugged. Perhaps some kind of spleen or kink of him. Non-smokers were a weird bunch after all, probably all vegans and environmentalists as well. No real men in any case. Ya, that's right, he remembered. He didn't consider non-smokers real men. Funny that this never occured to him before. Or that being a real man was something important to him before. But it was. That's why he was wearing his leather jacket with the smokes sticking out on the front, to show the world proudly he was a smoker. It didn't really occur to him that he had never owned a leather jacket before as Luke dropped more of the cigarette ash into Matts open mouth.
Sadly, the next pull on his cigarette would be the last one, as only the stump remained. He sighted, thinking about lighting the next one directly. But he had no idea how long he would need to go without being able to buy a new pack, so he just sighted again and ground out his cigarette directly on Matts tongue, not even thinking that this was strange or hurtful.
Matt couldn't believe himself, as he allowed Luke to just grind out and dispose of his cigarette stump into his mouth. It didn't even hurt much - he had expected a worse sensation, but it felt more like that this was was his tongue was for after all. A silly thought, disrupted by the sound of metal screaching against metal. Apparently the exit door had just opened on its own.
It was a pleasant surprise for Luke as well. "Well, let's get out" he said, adding "You're coming along to my dorm room." on a whim. He didn't know why he said that, but it didn't feel wrong to him. He had stolen ashtrays on other occasions and there didn't seem to be that much of a difference.