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In the Aftermath…
Devens
There’s a strange pang of loneliness that curves through him, twisting and pulsing, now surging, now dying, like the last dancing embers of the fire as it gives way to the rising night.
In the shelter, everyone else is asleep, bodies curled together, as they always are. But around him, there’s a strange hollow that lingers, palpable, exists, if only in his own mind. An emptiness in the space that Christian’s body had come to occupy suddenly blaring in the air next to his. Maybe it’s not literally empty, no stretch of vacant leg-room lasting long between ten people all trying to stay comfortable.
But to him---
The emptiness of it is as real as anything else; the absence of the slighter build, tucked up along his side, present for so many nights, and now gone.
It had been something, in its own specific kind of way, to watch every evening, as the other, whose mind was always racing, filled with more thoughts than Devens could ever hope to think in a lifetime, would so quickly slip into a dreaming dark, no sooner had they settled into the corner that had become their own.
Maybe Christian had always been a deep sleeper. Or maybe… Maybe it was something in the way they curved together just right that did it. The way their limbs tangled and their breaths muddled, and maybe something in the beat of their hearts synced up. A strange, unbearable kind of safety in the most brutal environment possible, surfacing in the space between their chests. Something they all craved out here, hungered for, in the way their bodies fit together like pieces in a puzzle. Maybe it was that which had allowed Christian to close his eyes and sleep---cold, hunger, and game be damned.
Devens, he doesn’t consider himself a coward, but, in truth, he’d been too afraid to ask.
All he knows is that in the night, he’d watch Christian so easily slip into sleep for long minutes before slinging a careful arm around that frame, pulling him closer, protective, maybe, possessive, maybe, maybe just pleased, to have someone to hold. To have Christian. Freak for freak, or whatever the kids would say about them these days. To be together.
But that space, which he can feel, the presence of space, the absence of body, is cold now. And there’s something cold inside of his chest, too, a splinter of anger, furious and frozen.
He knows that to succumb to it would be foolish, that Christian, with rational objectivity, would run his hands through his hair, shake his head, and tell him with absolute certainty that it would be a bad move.
And Devens, he’s been through a lot in this game. Played from the bottom. Played ruthless. Played with no friends at all. And that could have made him angry. It could have stung. But he’d kept focused, kept his eye on the prize. But the chill of this is something else altogether. It burns and steams where flame meets ice. To have a friend. An ally. A something more.
And for that to be gone…
It’s a pain, a true, searing agony, to imagine they’ll never play together again. That that’s over now, and he has no choice but to accept it.
With effort, he forces the sensation to quell, presses it away from balled fingers, and tries to shape it into a smile, practices the way his muscles need to bend to form it.
He’s going to smile. And he’s going to have fun. If he gets angry, he’s going to make a bad decision. If he has fun, there’s a chance of a good decision… Or at least a fun-bad one. Only time will tell.
He smiles. But his eyes are cold, and the space next to him is empty. It’s not a loss forever, but it’s a loss of something that he won’t get back.
An ending that he knew could come, but he wasn’t ready for quite yet.
He smiles, but something whole has shattered.
They’ve taken this from him, but there will be some kind of hell to pay.
---
Christian
The tent is way too empty, too quiet.
All this space.
In the game, he’d longed for space. Christian, he’s not really a very good sharer of it. Not in particular a person who seeks out touch, who understands that language. There are a great many things he does understand. But a press of a hand to a shoulder, as easy as breathing… That’s not him, that’s never been him. But somehow, in this game, he seems to attract it. Brings it to himself like moth to flame.
It always takes him long, precious moments to untense into it, to understand it again. When it comes. To fully wrap his mind around the thought that another person, someone warm, gregarious, full of life, and a smile brighter than the stars, would look at Christian and almost reflexively imagine. Huh, that’s who I want to pull closer.
And then somewhere along the line, even though the discomfort never fully fades away, he finds he’s come to expect it, to seek it out.
And when it vanishes, inevitably. It’s a lot to unprocess.
There are many regrets, just now, sour on his tongue. But in the emptiness of his own quiet tent, the sharp tang of not reaching back for Devens, not letting himself be pulled into one last hug, is rife.
A bittersweet grief that encompasses so many, he finds it hard to name them all distinctly. But what does he have now but time?
On the surface, there’s the surreality that the game is at an end. His mind is still whirling and whirring, still imagining moves, endless variations of them, countless calculations for things that no longer matter, that no longer exist.
And they had so many more moves to make.
So much more fun to have.
Fun.
Such a strange sentiment. He hadn’t, in particular, come to the game to have fun. He’d come to win, maybe, come to play, come to let the outer bounds of his self be once again expanded in ways he can’t fully fathom.
Fun. That had been Rick’s idea. And there was no one more surprised than Christian to find it had been a good one.
He mourns his chance to win, yes, naturally, of course.
But more than that, he mourns his chance to play. He mourns this chance to play.
Because even if he does come back, to let the island curve its fingers around him again, let it elevate him into a person that once he only could dream of…
It won’t ever be like that again.
They won’t ever be together like that again.
It’s a loss so specific that it truly leaves him floundering under its weight in ways he’s not remotely prepared for. This notion of the vanishing of a trust that can’t exist in such a way in any other condition, that doesn’t need to exist in this way outside the game---where trust is a simple thing, easily given and taken.
But on the beach, in the quiet of the night, so hard won, so incredibly rarified.
And they had it, held it.
Something pure, something true, sanctified by fire, now snuffed.
They’ll trust one another outside the game, of course, they’ll see one another, he’s certain. But it’ll be different. They’ll be different.
They’ll never play together like that again.
It knots something hard in his heart, in his chest.
And in the quiet of the tent, the presence of space is pounds, and the absence of arms is loud.
—
At Tribal Council
Their eyes lock across the room. A veil between them now, a gulf that can’t be crossed, but in an exhale, they’re together again. Their eyes locking from across the room, gaze tangling, magnetic.
Devens’ lips curve and curve and curve, shift into the first real smile in days. And Christian nods back to him, wry and deprecating, as always, but, for just a breath, for that instant of connection, soft.
They’re apart, but in this infinitesimal breath, they’re not alone.