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It took a full cigarette for Richie, drunk and giggling, to begin to talk.
Richie didn't want to talk about the girl with the big tits at the bar, nor about the latest whatever-had-been-happening, but there was a glint in his dark eyes, mischievous at the same time as hesitant.
Giving Richie a barely polite glance, Jon lit a second cigarette.
"Crash and burn." Richie said.
"Excuse me?" Jon ducked his head, allowing the flame to catch.
They were very close - Richie smelled like sandalwood, a smell Jon associated with his mother dragging him along to home improvement shops. Sandalwood and alcohol, the latter of which made Jon's stomach ache.
Richie gestured in the air. "I mean - that's what happens, right? People burn so bright they crash and burn. Like stars." He said.
Jon felt like he was missing something. Never one to ask and have people think he was an idiot, Jon didn't ask. Instead, he peered at Richie from underneath his bangs and tried to figure out how drunk he was.
"That's what will happen to us. Right?" Richie continued.
"The band?" Slipped from Jon's mouth before he could stop himself.
Richie shook his head. "No. Us." He motioned between them. "We're gonna crash and burn and then what?" Richie sounded genuinely distraught.
So, Jon tried to fight back his own anxiety, because these woods Richie was speaking were so unlike his own. Perpetually optimistic, like a child, Richie rarely spoke like this - like he was dreading the future. Jon reached out for the other man's hand and managed to grasp it.
"Stars last thousands of years, don't they?" Jon said