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“Huh.” Logan watched Spring accept the cigar he had offered him. He kept his eyes on the builder as he knelt down in front of the open fire.
“I ain’t pegged you for a smoker.”
“Funny. Can’t say the same for you.” Spring replied, letting the leaping embers spark the brush of tobacco bulging at the tip of the cigar.
It was a shoddily-made roll, most likely one that Logan had made himself with whatever he could grow out in this wasteland.
But it took a light; that was all Spring needed. He would take anything to take the edge off the still-aching dagger cuts kissing his arms and his cheek, turning the surrounding skin an angry red.
Logan kept his eye on Spring as the other man straightened up, taking a crackling drag with one hand while the other rubbed through the gauze Haru had helped him wrap on his arm.
“Them cuts still’ smartin?”
The cigar left Spring’s lips with a drawn-out exhale.
“Sure are. No thanks to you.”
Logan gave a breathy, almost sheepish-sounding chuckle. The builder didn’t return it, still eyeing his newly-made ally with the same apprehension from hours ago.
“C’mon now. Bet you’d be good lookin’ if you wasn’t glowering at me all the time.”
Spring scoffed audibly, narrowly avoiding choking on his own smoke. “How am I supposed to look? Like you weren’t trying to kill me an hour ago?”
“Pssh. Ain’t nothin’ like that. I was tryin’ to see how good you was in a fight.”
Logan paused, ashing his cigar with the tip of his finger. “But I ain’t gonna lie, I probably damn sure did lose myself for a bit there. Been too long since I had a good spar.”
Spring noticed the other man’s features softening very slightly as their eyes met.
“Wasn’t meaning to cut’cha near as deep as I did. I’m mighty sorry, Spring.”
Spring hesitated, his pale green eyes nervously flickering away from the outlaw’s suddenly softer, genuinely apologetic gaze.
“...It’s fine.” He decided, taking a short drag to steady whatever nervous stirring he suddenly felt in his chest. “The tobacco helps.”
“Aye, ain’t that how it gets ya.” There was a strangely faraway look in Logan’s eyes as he puffed out a feathery ring of smoke.
“My Pa always told me to stay away from this shit. He was one of them smokers who lit up everyday knowing it was bad news.”
“Was doin’ better when Andy came along,” he continued. “Don’t wanna be smokin’ around no poor kid.”
“But when the lil’ rugrat ran out on us… I don’t know. Panicked before I realized he was safe with you and them others from town, and started up again…”
Deciding to be bold, Spring ashed his cigar before casting a neutral look at Logan.
“And yet here you still are.”
The returned look in Logan’s icy blue eyes was just as neutral.
“Hmph. Speak fer yourself.”
Forgetting himself for just one moment, a sheepish smile flickered on Spring’s lips. “Hmm… fair.”
Logan chuckled breathily. The two men shared a comfortable silence before a heavy gust stirred the dunes around them, blowing the small fire at their feet to mere cinders.
Realizing he had gone too long without taking a drag, Spring bent back down to feed the cigar on the lingering embers, to no avail.
Cursing under his breath, the builder reached behind his back to fish his pickhammer out of his pack to stoke the cinders, before he heard Logan’s voice above him.
“Need a light?”
Spring glanced over his shoulder, cocking a brow. “The fire’s out.”
There was an unreadable look in the outlaw’s eyes, his voice low with the cigar still being held between his lips.
“You can use mine.”
The builder was quiet for a long moment before straightening up and turning to face Logan.
“...All right.”
A somewhat awkward silence lingered heavily between them before Logan huffed teasingly, jerking his head a little as he sucked in a short drag.
“Well? Come get it.”
Not understanding, Spring frowned, wondering if the white-haired man was toying with him. “You’re not gonna hand it to me?”
“But yer so far away.” Logan’s voice was almost a strange purr, his steel boot scuffing the sandy dirt beneath them as if the two men weren’t standing less than a foot away.
“Would be easier fer you to just stop bein’ a stranger and light up where it is.”
“In your mouth?” Spring resisted the urge to blanch too hard.
“Why not?” Logan cocked a brow. “I don’t bite. Don’t got no cooties, either.”
The builder narrowed his eyes, seeing through the other man’s casual demeanor. “What kind of game are you playing?”
“No game.” Logan promised, his teasing tone turning to an unusually earnest one. “I told you at the hideout; I ain’t hidin’ nothing from ya. Not when so much of this depends on you bein’ on our side.”
“I jus’ want you to loosen up ‘round me, builder. We ain’t never gonna get along otherwise.” The outlaw’s features were soft, and Spring could feel the horribly familiar feeling start back up in his chest all over again.
“C’mon. Gonna make me hold this drag till I’m blue in the face?”
Spring hesitated for a few more seconds, before sighing louder than he intended. Sliding the cigar back between his lips, he closed the distance between them.
The builder was unable to help the way his body stiffened as his bandaged arm brushed against a rippling bicep, as their hips just narrowly avoided touching.
He could feel the breath from Logan’s nostrils on his mouth, warming his own lips in contrast to the chilly desert night. He wasn’t sure if it was the same before he came so close, but Logan’s breaths were coming quick and heavy.
Working his lips very slightly, Spring angled the cigar between his lips until it rubbed upward against Logan’s meager tobacco-kissed flame.
The spark flittered in the air between them, and as Spring pulled away, the flame from Logan’s cigar bathed his own, bringing it back to life.
As Spring sucked in the next drag, the cigar smoke filling his head gave him a high stronger than ever before.