van grimaces, giving a small wave at taissa's apology. she can say she's sorry now, now that van's in the seat beside her with time catching up to them; taissa's oldest fears inhabiting this space between them; but would she have considered how van felt before all this — during the determined success of her campaign?
"you don't have to go there." they murmur, not soft, the words tumbling rocks. passing taissa a remembering look, they are doubtful that she would have considered their feelings and yet they're learning that they have crossed her mind over the years.
by the time that taissa willingly took up the spotlight, breaking that collective promise, tai and van had become strangers to each other. strangers who knew each other more intimately than anybody else could and ever fucking should. feeling a sting during moments like these, van hasn't forgotten how taissa decided that she had to leave their relationship behind in order to achieve those successes in which van would see her photographed.
van remembers more than what feels fucking fair sometimes. the violence of the wilderness, the love between them which was their armor and their weapon. after rescue, as the years went on, those horrors diffused into haunts; and having been dropped back into a world that wasn't actually interested in supporting any of the survivors, van didn't have the sanctuary they had once built with taissa anymore, either.
as much as van tries to move beyond this apology, feeling heard in some part, it enters into a conflict with what difference it makes. their eyes widen into something frustrated and frantic. that same panic needles through their voice like a shooting pain: "we don't just get any do-overs."
how they phrase this is painfully young. they feel younger and smaller than they are. like they're back in their early twenties, at shauna's joke of a wedding, dizzy from an open bar, and drunker off the vision of taissa who is somehow their 'ex-girlfriend,' like anything about what they had could have been referred to in terms so hollowly mundane. but what's being awakened in van now, as it was back then, is the growing awareness that there can never be any going back; and that's where these apologies fester into frustration for van. this isn't entirely on taissa, who's been doing her best to acknowledge van's feelings, which since their conversation last night has brought some emotional relief, but it's the challenge of accepting that apologies can't rewrite their past. that the hurt and the wrecks have been done.
understanding the draw of nostalgia better than anyone, van regularly feels the visceral pull of wanting to go back to a feeling of when the past could have gone differently. they've reconstituted the good parts of the past into their present life. from those feelings, however, arises the straining awareness that they can never actually go back. this is true of the rupture in tai and van's relationship, too, and van, living with a changed relationship to time, is moving closer toward making the discovery that they need this fact recognized: that all there is is the time they have left.
tai and van will never be able to bring their friends back. van will never forget what it feels like to shuffle lives in their hands until they've memorized a face for each suit. tai and van can't get back years together for which those lives were supposedly sacrificed. the reality is that they went in the different directions they likely always were going to. presently, van's sick, driving taissa into a life that they've built for themself entirely separate of her. they won't be able to get any years back, but it's important to van that tai recognizes they do have right now. with them both here and breathing, maybe those sacrifices weren't, in the end, for nothing. tai isn't living with the altered relationship to time that van is (which can already feel isolating), but can't she at least see, with the two of them here, that this story between them, in all of its love and its horror, isn't over yet.
it's still going, whatever it is. and like every time past that something's happened between them, van doesn't know what to call it. there's never been a name for what they have.
but van can feel it. van feels it in the way taissa toys with them, confessing to getting spooked by horror flicks (and how palpably her real, lived fears pulse beneath that confession). proud of themself, van confidently snorts. "just a little? mn. huge understatement." they tease back, just to take pleasure in the playfulness that they used to use to tether each other through the horrors. likewise, tai catches van's act of avoidance. van discerns tai's fears; tai discerns, whether or not she means to, van's use of movies as an escape into other stories, other worlds, when van's own wasn't very savory: "but, uh, to answer your question, no. so happens that horror's coming in dead last on my list of appealing genres to show you right about now, thanks." they say seriously; but leap their brows at her almost comically, ya catch my drift?
— out of the truck and into the crisp air, the fading daylight spits sparks around them. the engine ticks hot as it rests. heat runs up van's spine as tai answers their touch by dragging her hand down the rough of their sleeve. humming at her compliment, it fades out into a smirk. tired, wordless, they trail their fingers low over the skin at her hip, where any bashful look in their eye deepens into something like hunger. something like the night on the compound. something like tai's hot breath in their mouth.
"i'll leave you to it," they salute back her little wave.
while taissa's on the hunt for snacks, van fills up the tank to where it's just enough to make the last marker. in solitude, they wrestle out a bottle of pain relievers from their backpack in the trunk. eventually, it's second nature, how van registers the sound of tai's footfalls. they look up to see her displaying assorted goodies with such enthusiasm that it squeezes a heartfelt laugh out of van. "shit." squinting from where they're leaning against the truck, they work at better seeing what she found. "you win the lottery while you were in there?" realistically, they're more tired than they are hungry, and they look it — and they also look very fucking won over. biting their smiling lip, "what'd'ya get?"
van eases down when taissa pitches her offer to drive that last marker. physically, they're overcome by a wash of relief at not having to hunch over the wheel a second longer. emotionally that relief is quickly shot through by tense reluctance. neither will they let slide her jab about tearing the wheel apart, not when taissa's rapid-fire questions had more than something to do with that clutch. eyes narrowing, they shake their head and look at her through errant strands of hair. "wait, wait just a sec. you wanna switch off? meaning, what? you drive this thing — yeah, didn't forget that — and it's my turn to play twenty-fucking-questions?"
chewing at their cheek, they are starting to feel wiped. all of the hours they've already drove would be a lot on the healthiest person. hand in their coat pocket, they feel the silver bite of their keys and glare at taissa because they're actually considering this in spite of themself, "ugh."
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