Now… Just because Kobra preferred the silence, and just because he was good at it, didn’t mean he liked it. Especially in a cramp space like this, the absence bit at him. For a long time he sat there, letting the quiet gnaw on his skin, focusing only on the in-and-out of breathing and the presence of his brother next to him. All at the same time, it was soothing, and maddening. His home-away-from-home-away-from-home he’d made into the Widow was feeling more like a casket with every passing second.
He started, vaguely, to imagine an atomic bomb going off, to explain the itch of it. Just like the ones he’d read about in his city textbooks. A huge, dramatic cloud of dust that would wash over him, over Party, over the car and the Diner and the desert, and burn it all away in one achingly long second. Everything between them and the world, destroyed and gone. The peace that would result in it.
The Kid tapped the shard of glass against the dashboard again, just for the sound of it.
“I didn’t have to follow you here,” Kobra echoed Poison’s earlier words slowly, through gritted teeth. He wanted to feel the tension around them shatter like the glass he’d been holding had, but, nothing. His lips pursed, jaw tightening. “I wanted to.”
Slowly, he poked the shard into the tip of his finger and twisted it slowly, idily feeling the blunt ache of the puncture. “I would follow you to the bottom of a cliff, Poison,” he mumbled, twisting a little harder, needing that reminder that he was alive. The both of them, alive and dead, all at the same time.
Forgive me already, he thought. He was trying so hard for this, he really was. Party had to of known that.
Poison nodded, muddy gaze flicking towards the dash where he watched Kobra mess around with the glass. He knew the words were true and didn’t need to be reminded, but it was still nice to hear them.
Fingers groped around until he found the lever at the side of the seat. With a creaking noise, Poison brought himself back to an upright position. His expression tightened and he looked the other way, rustling his own greasy hair a little too vigorously; the mat and dirt keeping it in place where it was mussed.
“I don’t really wanna fight with you,” he said. The words came out guttural, mumbled. Poison was never great at apologies. “And y’know if it came to it--”
He trailed off, shrugging his shoulders from within the confines of his jacket. He hoped that there was some kind of unspoken understanding, that if Kobra was the type of person to dredge up the past he would always have the upper hand. He had been there for Poison at a time where the elder couldn’t even take care of himself, let alone provide any kind of mutual support for a younger brother who suffered just as much.
It was... humbling to ponder on who was truly the stronger one of the two.
Frowning, Poison was the first to break the seal on things. He opened the door and stepped out of the vehicle, waiting for his brother to do the same. Desert air filed his lungs and so he could blame the wetness in his eyes on the radiation or somesuch bullshit.
They’d go back inside, throw back a drink and forget about this-- hopefully.
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