He finds Spider sitting on the back patio in one of the heavy wrought iron chairs, the smell of a cigarette lingering in the air around him.Â
âYou smoke now?â River asks, taking the seat next to him. The space between them is small enough that he could comfortably spread his legs and rest his knee against Spiderâs. He doesnât. Â
âNo.â Spider doesnât look at River. He keeps his gaze on the tree line at the edge of the yard, tilting his head as if considering. âNot really.â
River raises an eyebrow at the lit cigarette between his fingers, following its path to Spider's mouth.Â
Spider blows a soft trail of smoke from his lips, waiting for it to dissipate before he speaks. âI had a⊠somethingâmore than a fling, less than a relationshipâsecond year of uni. Heâd step out right after weâd fuck to have a cigarette, but he never smoked otherwise. I asked once if it really made it better, the afterglow or whatever people claim. He said it didnât, but it mellowed things so the sadness didnât come rushing back too soon.â
âNot a shining endorsement.â
Spider turns his head at that, finally meeting Riverâs eyes just to glare at him briefly before looking away again. âIt wasnât because of me, arsehole. The sex was fucking amazing, of course, but he had this untouchable sadness to him. I think the contrast made things feel more profound or something, for a while. Eventually, we both realized what made it so good was that we didnât care if we hurt each other in the process of hurting ourselves. Lost its novelty after that.â
Itâs more self-reflection than River would have thought Spider capable of, although he supposes the other man has had plenty of time to think on things since his not-death. More jarringly, Riverâs struck by the idea that it sounds like the opposite of whatever the two of them hadâthe way they were always too deeply invested in hurting the other one to notice the shrapnel sliding under their own skin.Â
âDoes it work?â he asks. âWith the mellowing, or whatever?â
âNo. Not for me, at least.â Spider turns his hand over, reaching out to offer the half-smoked cigarette toward River.Â
He takes it, pulling a slow drag and focusing on the slight resistance in his throat to distract himself from the dampness on the filter where Spiderâs lips had just been.Â
The quiet thatâs settled here, away from the city, seems different from anything River can remember. Itâs not like the moment after an explosion or a close-range gunshot, when the pressure in his head is almost a sound of its own before the tinnitus overtakes everything else. This silence feels delicate, tiptoeing between the occasional swishing of leaves in the wind or birdsong, or skittering away at the whirring thumps of a helicopter passing somewhere in the distance. Itâs like itâs unused to being allowed to stretch out this much, as though itâs unsure how long the absence of cars and children playing and whatever other sounds normally fill a neighborhood like this will last.Â
Spider's voice doesnât so much cut through it as nudge it aside gently to take its place.
âItâs just nice, sometimes, to think it might.â
